


Ohana

by AchillesMonkey



Series: Care and Comfort - AoS Non-Sexual Age Play Stories [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Age Play, Amusement Park, Angst, Anxiety, Bathing/Washing, Bathroom Accidents, Big Sister Bobbi, Bottle-Feeding, Brain Injury, British Slang, Britpicked to the best of my ability, Bromance, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Love, But Bobbi calls him out on it, Canon Disabled Character, Caretaking, Coloring, Comfort Toys, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Daddy Coulson, Dating Advice, Day Off, Diapers, Discussion of Parental Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Needs A Hug, Expressive Aphasia, F/M, Families of Origin, Family Communication, Family Dinner, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Fitz Crying, Fitz isn't a morning person, Fitz verbally abuses the lab assistants, Fluff, Gen, Gift Giving, Grumpy Fitz, Hand Flapping, Hunter & Fitz BrOTP, Hurt/Comfort, Jemma Crying, Jemma Simmons Needs a Hug, Jemma hates therapy, Lance Hunter Headcanon, Lance Hunter Needs a Hug, Lego, Leo Fitz Headcanon, Leo Fitz Needs a Hug, Little Fitz, Little Hunter, Little Jemma, Little Skye, Mention of canon violence and torture, Mischief, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Name Changes, Nightmares, Non-Sexual Age Play, Pacifiers, Panic Attack, Phil's Hand, Physical Therapy, Platonic bed sharing, Play Therapy, Pranks, Rubik's Cube, Sassy Jemma, Security Blanket, Separation Anxiety, Shopping, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Relationship, Sibling affection, Skye | Daisy Johnson Needs a Hug, Skye/Daisy Johnson Crying, Stimming, Swearing, Team as Family, Temper Tantrums, Therapy, Toy Weapons, Toys, Uncle Mack - Freeform, Wetting, art therapy, bottles, brief non-graphic discussion of safe sex practices, hair cuts, mama may, meltdowns, mildly AU, nerf guns, pretend play, pull-ups, rated for language, saying goodbye, sibling fighting, stuffed animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 39,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5469239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AchillesMonkey/pseuds/AchillesMonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten." -Lilo and Stitch</p><p>This fic explores the Team as Family dynamics in a non-sexual age play setting starting after episode 2x19.  Originally titled Brotherly Love. Rated for language. </p><p>I had the tags nice and organized, but then it changed the order when I posted. I don't know why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One: Lance, Leo, and Danger Mouse

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Agents of SHIELD or these characters. Rory the Dinosaur is taken from chapter 6 of celestialskiff's Girl Surrounded By Monsters and belongs to celestialskiff. My entire head canon for this age play universe is based on celestialskiff's Found Family series.
> 
> This chapter takes place after episode 2x19.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson tells Hunter about his age play relationship with Skye, Jemma, and Leo while they’re alone in the cabin. Once back at The Playground after the mission to rescue Mike and Lincoln is finished, Hunter can’t get the idea out of his head, so he seeks out Fitz to ask him about it.

Hunter wanders around the base aimlessly. He’s bored. Bobbi is off with Gonzales doing who knows what and he has no idea where the rest of the team are; there’s no one in the kitchen or common area. Normally he’d take a couple six-packs to his room and drink his boredom away, but for once he’s not in the mood for alcohol.

He can’t stop thinking about something Coulson had told him while they were holed up in that cabin. The man had admitted that he finds comfort in taking care of people and that he sometimes takes care of Skye and Fitz and Simmons doing this thing called age play. It’s all completely non-sexual; he’d been quick to assure Hunter. That’s a relief because the only experience Hunter has with this sort of thing is an ex who liked to call him Daddy in bed. It was a real turn off for him. They didn’t last long.

Coulson had then told him that he thought maybe Hunter was little like Skye and Fitz and Simmons. The man claimed he had a knack for knowing things like that. Hunter hadn’t known what to think. He’d quickly changed the subject and Coulson let it drop.

Hunter had done some googling later and most of it was nothing he’d be interested in: nappies and dressing up and all that. But there was another aspect of it where the age players aged down to primary school age and played with toys or watched telly from when they really were that age. That was something Hunter thought he could get behind. He hadn’t had much of a real childhood, not with his father running the house like Lance and his brothers were soldiers instead of sons.

He notices Fitz go into his bedroom and shut the door. He makes an impulsive decision and heads over, knocking four times. “Come in,” he hears Fitz say.

Hunter opens the door and enters. Fitz is sitting on his bed, in the middle of taking his shoes off, and he stares at Hunter as the man enters. “Hey,” Hunter says. “Er—” Shit. Now what does he say? He closes the door behind him and blurts it all out. “Coulson told me that he takes care of you and Simmons and Skye and I was just wondering what is it like?”

“Coulson told you?” Fitz asks, frowning as he pulls off his right shoe.

“Yeah,” Hunter confirms. Fitz looks really annoyed now and he tosses his shoe to the floor a bit harder than he needs to. “Coulson said he thinks I’m little too,” he admits. Fitz’s expression changes to surprise.

“Really?”

“Yeah, so I was just wondering what is it like?”

“Confusing,” Fitz tells him. He scoots back on the bed so that he’s more toward the head and gestures for Hunter to have a seat at the foot. “Really bloody confusing.” Hunter sits with a slight wince as the wound in his side protests at the movement and waits for Fitz to continue.

“I shouldn’t like it as much as I do. I’m 27-years-old, I shouldn’t need to be coddled. But I like it too much to stop.” He rubs his fingers against his lips, gathering his thoughts. “I had to grow up . . . er . . . fast. Mum had to work two sometimes three jobs just to make ends meet, so I learnt to take care of myself early on. Mum tried her hardest to give me a normal childhood, but when you’re as clever as I am, a normal childhood isn’t really possible. So for me, being little is about letting go and letting someone else make decisions and take responsibility for a while. I don’t have to be Agent Fitz the engineering genius, I can just . . . be Leo.”

It sounds nice. Hunter’s not always the best at making good decisions, so allowing someone else have that responsibility is something he’d be okay with. “What do you do when you’re little?”

“Watch TV or play games, usually, or we eat together as a family. Sometimes May or Coulson reads to us; I like when they do that.”

“May?” Hunter asks, surprised.

“Yeah,” Fitz says. “She’s like the Mum and Coulson’s like the Da. They take care of us together, or if one isn’t available, the other’ll take charge. May’s definitely the strict parent though, so don’t get on her bad side.”

“Too late,” Hunter mutters and Fitz grins at him. “D’you call them Mum and Dad?”

“Jemma and Skye call them Mommy and Daddy. I just call them May and Coulson. And they call us by our first names, well Jemma and me anyway. Skye is always Skye. But it’s like a signal; when they call me Leo instead of Fitz I know I can be little.”

“Oh,” Hunter says. “Guess that means I’m Lance.”

“Do you not like Lance?”

“It’s all right,” he says with a shrug. “I haven’t been called Lance since I was 16. I’ve been Hunter ever since I joined the army; and you have to admit Hunter sounds a lot cooler than Lance.”

“Lance isn’t bad,” Fitz says. “It’s a weapon. I much prefer Leo to Leopold, though.”

“Your mum called you _Leopold_?” Hunter asks incredulously. How was he just now learning this?

“Yeah, no idea what she was thinking,” Fitz says, shaking his head.

“At least you can get Leo out of it. You can’t get any good nicknames from Lance.”

They’re quiet for a moment and then Fitz’s demeanor changes. He looks at Hunter with a shy, anxious expression. “Do you wanna watch something? Try it out?”

“Yeah,” Hunter agrees, suddenly feeling nervous.

“’Kay. What do you want to watch?”

“Do you have Danger Mouse?” He hadn’t been allowed to watch a lot of telly growing up, but Danger Mouse was always his first choice when he and his brothers went to their grandparents and he was allowed to control the remote.

“I can find it.” Leo picks up his tablet and swipes it on. Lance uses the time he’s searching to take off his shoes and make himself more comfortable on the bed.

“Are you hungry? I’m hungry,” Leo asks after he’s found the show. He lays the tablet aside and leans over the side of the bed, rummaging around underneath. He starts handing up plastic jars filled with snacks. There’s one full of Oreos, another stuffed with bags of jelly babies and wine gums, another with Jammie Dodgers, another with crisps, and another with pretzels.

Lance stares at the spread in surprise and Leo gives him a sheepish look as he sits back up. “Mum didn’t like me eating sugar—it made me hyper—so I’d hide sweets and snacks under my bed and I guess I never got out of the habit,” he explains. He picks up the tablet and shifts so that he’s sitting next to Lance on his non-wounded side, resting the tablet on both their legs. “Which do you want?” he asks, indicating the snacks.

“Jammie Dodgers,” Lance says, and Leo passes over the container. He chooses pretzels for himself and presses play on the screen once they’re both ready.

It’s been ages since Lance watched Danger Mouse. He’d forgotten how much he had enjoyed watching the secret agent mouse and his bumbling assistant Penfold. He finds himself relaxing as they watch more episodes. Leo is relaxing too. He leans against Lance’s side and then immediately tenses, pulling away. Lance wraps an arm around his shoulders, pulling him back. He’s always enjoyed cuddling and cuddling with Leo is no different than when he cuddled his little brothers.

They finish watching all eleven episodes in the first series and Leo turns the tablet off with a yawn. There’s an old, well-loved monkey in his lap and he has the tail wrapped around his hand. “What d’you think then?” Leo asks, cuddling the monkey close to him.

“It’s nice,” Lance answers after thinking it over. “It was like bein’ back at me Gran’s and watchin’ telly with me brothers. ” He helps Leo close the jars of snacks and hands them to him as Leo puts them back under the bed. “Where’d the monkey come from?” he asks once all the snacks are hidden away.

“Oh,” Leo looks at the monkey, his face turning red. “He’s mine from when I was wee. My Nana gave him to me for my first Christmas. I’ve slept with him ever since.”

“What’s he called?”

“Henry.”

“Nice,” Lance comments. “I had a bear called Louis but me dad threw him out when I was eight, said I was too old for cuddly toys.”

Leo looks at him, shocked. “That’s horrible.”

Lance shrugs. “Yeah, well, Dad took Mum’s death hard. He started treating me and my brothers like we were soldiers. You know The Sound of Music?” Leo nods. “It was kinda like that, only we didn’t have a governess teach us how to sing.”

Leo picks up the Tyrannosaurus Rex from his bedside table and gives it to Lance. “Here,” he says as he thrusts the toy into Lance’s lap. “You can have my dinosaur.”

“Oh, no—” Lance starts, but Leo cuts him off.

“Take him. I have Henry and you don’t have anything. It’s nice to have something to cuddle when you’re little. Trust me.”

Lance looks down at the green dinosaur, feeling overwhelmed. “Cheers, mate,” he manages to get out. Leo shrugs and cuddles Henry close to his chest. “Does he have a name?”

“I called him Rory, but you can call him something else if you want.”

Lance nods and gives the dinosaur a hug. It is nice to have something to cuddle. Leo lets out another yawn and Lance figures that’s his cue to leave. He stands up slowly, careful of his wound, and grabs his shoes from the floor. “Thanks for this,” he says, smiling at Leo.

Leo smiles back. “Stop by anytime. It was fun.”

“Yeah,” Lance agrees. He leaves and makes his way back to his room. Thankfully he doesn’t meet anyone along the short distance. He doesn’t really feel like explaining why he’s carrying his shoes and a toy dinosaur.

Later, he lies in bed trying to think of the right name for his new dinosaur. It should start with a T of course. T the Tyrannosaurus Rex is nice and alliterative. T Dinosaur also has a nice ring to it. Tim? No, it needs to be at least two syllables. Timothy? That’s a possibility. Lance adds it to his mental list of possible names. Thomas? Eh, not his favorite. Terry? Yeah, that sounds good. He adds that to his list. Toby? Yes! Tobias Dinosaur, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, called Toby for short. Perfect! He sends Leo a text to let him know. Leo sends back a smiley face emoji.

Lance puts his phone away and cuddles Toby. It had been nice to relive his childhood a bit tonight, especially with Leo there to take the place of his little brothers. They’d always been around until he joined the army at 16 where he had left Lance The Big Brother behind and turned into Hunter The Soldier. He likes being Lance The Big Brother again.

 _I like taking care of people_ Coulson had told him. _May’s like the Mum and Coulson’s like the Da_ Leo had said. Lance starts to wonder about that aspect of this age play thing. What would it be like to be Lance The Son? He’s not sure, but he thinks he’d be okay finding out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I do plan for there to be more chapters focusing on Leo and Lance's brotherly relationship and Lance's little relationship with the rest of the family, but those chapters are not written yet. Once they are I will post them, but don't expect regularly scheduled updates.


	2. Part Two: Leo's Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leo has a nightmare after his interaction with Ward and seeks out Coulson to make it better. Takes place post 2x19.

_He’s back in the Medical Pod staring out at the dark ocean, an oppressive silence hanging over him. He has to get out. He looks around for something to help him, but the pod is empty. It’s just him in there. He starts breathing hard, his heart racing as he realizes that he’s going to die. There’s a knock on the window and he whirls around. Hope of a rescue blooms in him and then immediately vanishes as he catches sight of Ward smiling at him through the glass. “So, Fitz,” he says in a friendly, cheerful voice, “how’ve you been?” No. No no no no no—_

“NO!” Leo wakes up yelling, sitting up in bed. His heart is racing and tears stream down his cheeks. He hugs Henry tightly to his chest as his body trembles. _Need Da_ he thinks as he climbs out of bed and races out of his room toward Coulson’s.

He slows to a walk as he reaches Coulson’s bedroom door and hesitates briefly outside before a noise makes him jump and enter the room. Coulson sits up, gun in hand, and Leo freezes, putting his hands up in surrender. “Coulson?” he says, his voice cracking.

“Leo?” Coulson puts the gun away and turns on the lamp on his bedside table. “What’s wrong?” A sob escapes him and he hurries forward into Coulson’s open arms. The man pulls him into his lap, holding him tightly as he cries. “Did you have a nightmare?” Leo nods. “About Ward?” Leo nods again. Coulson sighs and rubs Leo’s back. “I’m so sorry, buddy. If there had been any other way . . .” He trails off and simply holds Leo until he stops crying.

Leo feels safe in Coulson’s arms. He doesn’t want to move after he finishes crying, but he knows that he must be squashing Coulson’s legs even if the man doesn’t complain or show any outward signs on discomfort. And he needs to pee he realizes as he pulls away from Coulson’s embrace and stands up, leaving Henry on the bed. He goes into the en suite, uses the toilet, blows his nose, and wipes his face. He gets a long drink of water from the tap before he goes back into the bedroom.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Coulson offers as Leo picks up Henry and begins chewing his ear. The monkey doesn’t mind when he does it. Henry knows it helps. Leo shakes his head in answer to Coulson’s question. “Then do you think you’re ready to try going back to bed?” No, no he’s not ready to leave the safety of Coulson’s room. He doesn’t want to go back to his room alone where he knows he won’t be able to get back to sleep. But he’s already interrupted enough of Coulson’s sleep. Of course the man would rather he leave so he can have a few more hours’ peace before having to deal with everything going on.

“Come here, Leo,” Coulson says when he takes too long to answer. He gently takes Leo’s arm and guides him toward the bed. Leo is relieved when he realizes Coulson is letting him stay and he won’t have to go back to his room alone. He climbs into the bed and cuddles up with Coulson, resting his head against the man’s chest. For once, he might be able to go back to sleep after a nightmare.

~*~*~*~

The sound of Coulson’s alarm wakes Leo up a few hours later. He lets out a whine of protest and clings tightly to Coulson as the man moves to shut the alarm off. A hand strokes his hair and he relaxes again, opening his eyes and turning his head so that he’s able to see Coulson. “We don’t have to get up right away,” Coulson tells him and Leo smiles at that. He closes his eyes again and lets the sound of Coulson’s heartbeat lull him back to sleep.

He’s woken again sometime later by Coulson’s hand stroking his hair. “Leo,” he says, “now it’s time to get up.”

Leo opens his eyes and glowers up at the man, who is standing above him already dressed in his typical suit. “No,” he tells him, and closes his eyes again, hugging Henry tightly.

“Yes,” Coulson replies, sounding amused. “I’ll make us pancakes for breakfast.”

Pancakes? Leo opens his eyes. “With chocolate chips?”

“How about blueberries?” Fine. Leo sits up and rubs his eyes. Coulson smiles at him. “You get ready while I make us breakfast,” he says.

Coulson leaves and Leo goes into the en suite to take a quick shower. He dresses in a spare set of clothes he keeps in Coulson’s room. He doesn’t normally spend the night with Coulson, but the man had suggested that he keep some clothes in the dresser for when he did.

Leo sits on the bed, chewing Henry’s ear as he waits for Coulson to come back with the pancakes. He’s bored. He doesn’t have his phone or tablet so he can’t distract himself with a game. Coulson has toys in the closet, he remembers. He goes over to the walk-in closet and finds a bin filled with toys for him, Jemma, and Skye to play with when they’re little. There are coloring books and crayons, a plastic tea set, some toy cars, and—there’s what he wants: boxes of Minecraft Lego! He brings the boxes back into the bedroom, sits on the floor, and begins building The First Night set.

Coulson enters carrying a tray and Leo abandons the Lego to eat. He’s starving. There are four pancakes on his plate. He’s pleased to find a chocolate chip pancake on top of his stack. The middle two are plain pancakes, and there’s a blueberry pancake on the bottom. Coulson’s stack has just blueberry pancakes. He douses his pancakes with syrup and begins to eat.

“Hunter said you told him about us,” Leo speaks up in the middle of the meal, “about this thing that we do.”

“I did tell him,” Coulson states. “I think Hunter’s little too.”

“He is,” Leo tells him. “He came to my room last night. We watched Danger Mouse and ate snacks. It was fun. But you shouldn’t have told him about us. Not without telling me first.”

“You’re right; I should have talked to you first,” Coulson admits. “I wasn’t planning on telling him. We were at that cabin, and I was worried about Skye, and you, and Jemma. I wanted someone to take care of, and I’ve suspected Hunter was little since the first time we met, so I told him. I’m sorry.”

Leo keeps eating. “You like taking care of us then?” he asks between bites.

“I do,” Coulson answers. “It’s nice, being needed. I like that I can comfort you and take care of you the way you need. If only I could solve all of SHIELD’s problems as easily as I do yours.”

“What, put Gonzales on the naughty step?” They laugh at the funny mental image of Coulson putting the misguided SHIELD Agent in time-out.

Leo finishes eating and turns to look at the Lego still spread out on the floor. He knows it’s time for him to be big now, but he’d much rather keep playing. “Take the day off,” Coulson says, and he turns to look at the man.

“Really?”

“You’ve earned it.”

“Will you stay with me?” he asks, knowing that the answer will be no and refusing to let himself feel disappointed.

“I wish I could,” Coulson answers, and Leo feels disappointed anyway. “Why don’t I send Lance to keep you company? Do you think he’d like to?”

“Yeah!” Leo says enthusiastically.

“Okay, you go brush your teeth while I find him.”

Leo does as he’s told and grins widely at himself in the mirror as he takes the toothpaste top off. Finally, a brother to play with!


	3. Part Three: Lance, Leo, Lego, and Mischief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson gives Lance and Leo the day off and Lance is able to explore his little side some more. This chapter takes place during episode 2x20 and is mildly AU. Since Hunter and Fitz don't have a lot to do during the episode, I've decided that they took the day off and spent it playing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never actually played Minecraft, so apologies if I've gotten anything wrong.

Hunter is just leaving his bedroom when he hears the director call out “Lance!” He turns in surprise, not used to hearing that name.

“Sir?” he asks, hesitantly. Fitz had said that when Coulson and May use their first names it means they can be little. Does Coulson want him to be little now? He’s supposed to go with the team to _The Iliad_.

“I’ve given Leo the day off, and since I can’t stay with him I thought you could keep him company. What do you think?”

He’d be an idiot not to take advantage of an offered a day off. “Sure, where is he?”

“Follow me,” Coulson says, and leads him away from the main sleeping quarters.

Coulson leads Lance to a part of the base he hasn’t been to before. They enter a bedroom, which Lance quickly deduces is Coulson’s, to find Leo on the floor surrounded by Lego. He looks up as they enter and beams widely at them, looking happier and more carefree than Lance has ever seen him.

“Hi, Lance, do you want to play with me?” he asks.

“Okay,” Lance says, glancing at Coulson. The man is busy with his phone.

Lance sits on the floor next to Leo and picks up a weird green figure with a square head. “What’s this?”

“That’s a creeper.”

“Creeper?”

“Yeah, it’s a hostile mob that attacks Steve.”

“Steve?”

Leo holds up another minifigure with a square head, blue top, and purple bottoms. “This is Steve. He’s one of the default characters in Minecraft. Have you never played Minecraft?” Lance shakes his head. “Oh, it’s a really fun game where you can build anything you want.” Leo keeps talking about the game and Lance only half pays attention as he starts fiddling with some of the little pieces on the floor.

“Okay, boys,” Coulson interrupts Leo’s monologue about Minecraft as he kneels down next to them. “I have to go; I’ll check on you when I get back. Stay out of trouble, okay?” Lance watches as he gives Leo a hug and a kiss and is then surprised when Coulson does the same to him. He can’t help but tense up, which causes Coulson to give him a concerned look. “Do you not want me to do that, Lance?”

Lance shrugs, trying to play cool. “Nah, it’s fine. I’m just not used to me boss givin’ out hugs is all.”

“Well, I’m not your boss when you’re Lance. I’m just the grown-up who takes care of you. And if anything ever makes you uncomfortable, you let me know, okay?” Lance nods and Coulson gives them both an affectionate squeeze on the shoulder. “Have a good day, boys.”

Leo watches as he leaves, a sad expression on his face. He starts chewing his knuckle. “So, what are we building then?” Lance asks to distract him. It works.

“Well, this set is called The First Night,” Leo indicates a mostly put together house and garden, “and it’s just your basic shelter with supplies, but I’ve also got these other sets that we can use to create a whole Minecraft world.”

Lance picks up a box that has a dragon and some sort of tower that makes him think of the Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings on it. “What’s this?”

“That’s the Ender Dragon set. The dragon lives in the End and you have to defeat him in order to escape.” His explanation doesn’t mean much to Lance, but dragons are cool, so he opens the box. “No!” Leo cries, snatching the box out of his hands.

“Oi!”

“We build that _last_ ,” Leo says firmly, putting the box behind him where Lance won’t be able to get it. “We have to build everything else first.”

“But I want to play with the dragon,” Lance protests, reaching around Leo to get the box.

Leo shoves him and Lance falls backwards, catching himself with his arms. He immediately retaliates and has Leo flat on his back within seconds, easily pinning the smaller man to the floor. Leo stares up at him, a scared expression on his face, and Lance releases him. Leo sits up and they eye each other warily.

“Sorry,” Lance mutters first, rubbing the back of his neck in discomfort.

“Yeah, ’m sorry too,” Leo replies. He offers him a smaller box that has the Steve figure in a garden with animals and a square-headed skeleton. “You can build this one,” he says, watching Lance carefully.

“Fine,” Lance takes the box and opens it, “but I get to build the dragon when we get to that one.”

They spend the rest of the morning building the Lego Minecraft world. He does get to build the dragon, and ends up playing with it while Leo plays with everything else. Leo tries explaining the game some more, but Lance just doesn’t get it. Leo promises to show him the actual game later.

“I’m hungry,” Leo announces once they’ve spent three-quarters of an hour playing with the Lego after building it.

Lance looks at the clock on Coulson’s bedside table and sees that it’s nearing one in the afternoon. “Me too.”

They abandon the Lego and make their way to the kitchen where they set to work making sandwiches for themselves. While searching through the cupboards for crisps, Lance finds some blue food coloring that gives him an idea for what to do after they eat. He brings it to the table along with the bag of crisps and Leo glances at it curiously.

“Whazzat for?” He asks around a bite of his prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella sandwich.

“Tell me, mate, how do you feel about pranks?”

“Pranks are great fun. Once, on the Bus, I rigged a mop to fall out of one of the supply rooms when you opened the door. It scared everyone, even Coulson,” Leo brags. “Who are we gonna prank?”

“Bobbi.”

They spend the rest of lunch plotting, and after they finish, they gather their supplies and make their way to Bobbi’s bedroom. Lance locates Bobbi’s shampoo in her shower caddy, opens it, and begins putting the food coloring in. Leo pulls back the thick duvet on Bobbi’s bed and begins placing eggs on top of the sheet and underneath her pillows. When he finishes, he pulls the duvet cover back up gently, taking care not to smash the eggs. For the final touch, Lance pours flour into Bobbi’s hair dryer. They make sure nothing in the room is out of place before they leave and take their supplies back to the kitchen.

They see Coulson and the group from _The Iliad_ going up to Coulson’s office as they make their way back to Coulson’s bedroom. Leo gets that sad expression on his face again when he sees Coulson, so Lance tries to distract him with a stupid joke. Leo gives him a half-hearted smile for his efforts, which is better than nothing. They reach the bedroom and Leo flops down on the bed, hugging his monkey to his chest.

Lance notices the television on the wall and moves to join Leo on the bed. “Wanna watch a movie?” Leo nods. He’s chewing his monkey’s ear now. Lance finds the remote and turns it on. “What should we watch?” Leo shrugs. Lance starts going through their options and eventually settles on The Pirates! Band of Misfits. He starts the movie and stretches out, making himself comfortable.

Coulson enters toward the end of the movie looking worn out and irritated. He smiles at them as he goes into the bathroom. When he comes out, he joins them on the bed, settling down in the middle between the boys. Leo immediately curls up against the man and Coulson wraps an arm around him, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. He then smiles at Lance and opens his other arm, inviting him to cuddle up too. Lance considers it, but remains where he is. He’s not ready for that level of intimacy with his boss just yet, even if he is just ‘the grown-up who takes care of him’ right now. They watch the rest of the movie and when it’s over Lance presses the off button on the remote.

“Are you done for the day?” Leo asks, looking up at Coulson.

Coulson sighs. “Not quite, buddy. Skye and Lincoln are going to leave and go back to their community. Tomorrow I’ll be going to visit and talk to their leader, Jiaying. Apparently she’s Skye’s mother.”

“Skye found her mum?” Lance asks.

“I guess so. Do you boys want to come with me to say goodbye to Skye?”

“Yeah,” Leo says, and Lance nods. “And then you’ll be done?” Leo asks.

Coulson sighs again and gives Leo a tired smile. “Yeah, buddy, then I can be done.”

They make their way to the lab where Simmons, Skye, and Lincoln are talking to each other. Fitz goes to stand next to Simmons and makes a dumb joke about the hula dancer doll in Skye’s hands. Lance hangs back, allowing the friends to have a moment.

“Time to go,” Coulson says gently.

Skye hugs Simmons and Fitz and then turns to Coulson. “See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Coulson confirms with smile. They watch as Skye and Lincoln leave the base. “Let’s go back to the room. Jemma, would you like to join us?”

Simmons gives Coulson an anxious look. “I have work to do.”

“It can wait until tomorrow, can’t it?” Leo speaks up. “Come with us, Jemma.”

Jemma takes a deep breath and nods. “Okay.” Leo smiles and takes her hand.

They stop outside the main bedrooms and wait for Jemma to change out of her work clothes and into something more comfortable. “You should go get Toby,” Leo tells Lance as they wait. “Jemma will bring her bunny Ben, and I’ve got Henry.”

“Okay.” Lance goes into his bedroom and gets the dinosaur. Coulson eyes it quizzically.

“Isn’t that the dinosaur I got you?” he asks Leo.

“I gave him to Lance ’cause he didn’t have anything,” Leo explains. He gives Coulson a worried look. “Is that okay?”

“Yes, I think that was very kind of you, Leo.”

Jemma comes out wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. She has a well-loved rabbit in her arms and gives Lance a curious look when she notices the dinosaur.

“He’s like us,” Leo explains simply. Jemma nods and takes Coulson’s hand.

They go back to Coulson’s bedroom where Jemma and Leo get down on the floor and start playing with the Lego that’s still there from that morning. Lance sits on the bed and watches them, a bit bored.

“Don’t you want to play with the Legos, Lance?” Coulson asks, sitting next to him.

“Nah, I don’t understand the story.”

“There are more toys in the closet,” Coulson offers, “some cars, I think, or you could pick out a board game for us to play.”

“Board game,” Lance decides.

“Okay, they’re in the closet in the common room. Do you want me to go with you?”

Lance shakes his head. “Nah, I can go.”

“Daddy, I want my dummy,” he hears Jemma say as he leaves.

He makes his way to the empty common room and opens the cupboard where all the board games are kept. All the classics are there (Monopoly, Scrabble, draughts, chess, etc.) plus some newer games that Lance hasn’t heard of. There’s a lot to choose from.

“Ticket to Ride is a fun game.” Lance starts as May’s voice comes out of nowhere. He turns around to look at her. She stares back, her face its usual impassive mask.

“Thanks,” Lance mutters, taking it from the stack of games. He reads the description on the back. It looks like a fun strategy game.

“And Leo enjoys Mouse Trap, if you’re going to be playing with him.”

Lance shrugs. “Him and Jemma were playing Lego.” He chooses a few more games from the closet and turns to leave. He stops just inside the entrance and turns back to May. “You’re okay with me joining this . . . this . . . thing?” he asks, unable to come up with an accurate description for what he’s been doing all day. “Being Lance I mean.”

Lance swears he sees May’s expression soften slightly before she answers. “It was inevitable.” She doesn’t say anything more and Lance goes on his way.

“Oh, Mouse Trap!” Leo cries when Lance enters and drops his stack of games on the bed. He starts to get up, but Coulson quickly intervenes.

“Not so fast, Leo. You’ll need to clean up the Legos before you can play the board games.”

“Why just me?” Leo demands. “Lance built the Lego too!”

“Because Lance chose to play board games while you and Jemma chose to play Legos. If you want to play board games with us, you need to clean up the Legos.”

Leo looks decidedly disgruntled. “I’ll help you, Leo,” Jemma says. “That way it will go faster, and I’m the best at making sure the right pieces go in the right boxes.”

“Make sure all the pieces are in their boxes,” Coulson tells them as they start to break apart the sets. “If I step on a Lego in the middle of the night, I’m not going to be happy.” He turns to Lance. “Which game would you like to play while we wait for Leo and Jemma?”

Lance looks over his options. There’s Ticket to Ride, Mouse Trap, Battleship, Monopoly, and draughts, or checkers as they call it in America. “Draughts,” he decides. They set up the board (Lance chooses the red pieces) and start to play. They spend the rest of the evening playing board games. Coulson orders pizza for dinner and lets them watch a movie before he sends them away to go to bed.

Hunter is feeling happy and relaxed as he and Fitz walk back to their bedrooms. That feeling quickly changes to a mixture of amusement and fear when they encounter a furious Bobbi dressed in only a dressing gown with blue hair covered in flour, her hair dryer still in her hand.

“Trying out a new look, love?” Hunter quips, trying his best to look innocent. Fitz is biting his fingers as he tries not to laugh in Bobbi’s face. “I have to say I still prefer you blonde.”

“Bite me!” she snaps, glaring at both of them. “I _will_ make you pay for this, Hunter.” She goes into her bedroom and slams the door.

“You think she’s found the eggs?” Fitz whispers to him.

“HUNTER, YOU PRICK!” Bobbi shouts.

“I think she just did, mate,” Hunter answers. They both run into their bedrooms and lock the door before Bobbi can come back out and murder them.

Hunter places Toby on his bed and smiles at the dinosaur as he starts to undress. He’s a good reminder of the fun he’s had over the past 24 hours. It had been nice being Lance all day. He’d really got a taste for what being Lance actually means and he finds that he’s eager for more. Even May had seemed accepting of Lance. He figures Coulson must have told her about him. Or maybe she figured it out herself. May always seems to know what's going on at The Playground.

He climbs into bed without going to brush his teeth. He’s pretty sure Bobbi is lying in wait, ready to attack the minute he steps out of his room. “G’night, Toby,” he tells the dinosaur as he turns off his light. “You stay up and protect me from demonic hell-beasts, all right?”


	4. Part Four: Jemma and Mama May

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma is not quite ready to be big again when Coulson sends the kids to bed, so she seeks out Mama May for more little time. Takes place during 2x20.

Jemma hesitates as Leo and Lance leave Coulson’s room. The man had just announced that it was time for bed, but she doesn’t want to be alone tonight. Her tummy hurts and she feels a bit sick thanks to the anxiety that’s her constant companion these days. She sucks her dummy and plays with Ben’s long ears, waiting to see if Daddy will let her stay.

Daddy sighs and rubs his eyes. He looks very tired. “Jemma, honey,” he begins, and Jemma knows that she won’t be sleeping in Daddy’s bed tonight.

“It’s okay,” she interrupts him, taking her dummy out to speak. “I’ll go find Mommy.”

Daddy comes over and gives her a hug and kiss. “Thank you, honey. Good night, I love you.”

Jemma hugs Ben tightly as she makes her way to May’s room. Her dummy is still in her hand and she squeezes it, taking comfort in the familiar shape and feel of the object. May opens the door on the first knock and Jemma enters, feeling suddenly overwhelmed by the need to cry. She drops down onto the edge of the bed and bursts into tears.

May comes over and wraps her arms around Jemma, holding her as Jemma cries into her shoulder. She doesn’t even know why she’s crying really. It’s been a fun day. She got to spend some time with Skye, and then she played with Leo and Lance and Daddy. She should be happy, not crying in Mommy’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” she says after she manages to stop crying. She pulls away from May’s embrace as a few final tears roll down her cheeks.

“Why?” May asks as she grabs some tissue from the box on the bedside table and hands them to Jemma.

“I’m being silly,” Jemma says, twisting the tissue in her hands. May takes them from her and starts wiping her face for her.

“I don’t think you’re being silly,” May tells her. “The past few weeks have been difficult for everyone.” She holds a tissue to Jemma’s nose and instructs her to “blow.”

Jemma does so and the action makes her feel littler than ever. “Mommy,” she whimpers after May finishes wiping her nose. May throws the tissue in the bin next to the bed and gathers Jemma into her arms again.

“I’ve got you, darling,” Mommy says gently, kissing Jemma’s temple. Jemma sticks her dummy in her mouth and closes her eyes, resting her head on May’s shoulder. They sit there quietly for a few minutes and the sound of Jemma’s sucking is the loudest noise in the room. “I think you need a bottle,” Mommy comments and Jemma opens her eyes. “Did you eat dinner?”

“Daddy got pizza.”

“And did you eat it?” Mommy asks again. Jemma nods, sliding her dummy back into her mouth. She had managed to eat one slice of the pizza before her anxiety took her hunger away. “Do you want to come with me while I go get your bottle or stay here?” Jemma sucks her dummy harder. She’s not in the right mindset to make decisions right now. Thankfully Mommy seems to realize that because she makes the decision for her. “Stay here,” Mommy tells her as she stands up. “I’ll be right back with your bottle.”

Some more tears slip out as she watches Mommy leave the room. She keeps sucking her dummy, refusing to let herself start crying again. She already has a headache from the first time. She hugs Ben and tries to distract herself with one of the stories Skye likes to tell about dragons and mermaids in a nice, safe forest, but that just makes her think of Skye being away from their family, which causes the tears to start falling again.

She misses Skye. It isn’t fair that Skye was cursed with Inhuman genes that make her dangerous to be around her family. It isn’t fair that Skye had to be sent away for everyone’s safety. It isn’t fair that Skye had to find a new family with all the other Inhumans. It isn’t fair that Fitz and Coulson have decided that Hunter should take Skye’s place. She cries into Ben’s soft fur and wonders where Mommy is. She’s been gone longer than it takes to get a bottle.

May enters, bottle in hand and an exasperated expression on her face. “I’m sorry, Jemma,” she says as she walks to the bed. “Your brothers apparently decided to prank Bobbi and she needed someone to vent to.”

Jemma scrubs the tears away with the heel of her hand and frowns. “They’re not my brothers,” she tells May firmly after taking her dummy out of her mouth. Hunter definitely isn’t, and though Fitz has felt like a brother to her in the past, those feelings haven’t been very sibling like as of late.

May doesn’t respond. Instead, she sits on the bed, leaning against the headboard, and opens her arms for Jemma to settle in them. Jemma moves so that she’s sitting in May’s lap, her head resting against the woman’s shoulder. May wipes a few remaining tears off Jemma’s cheek with her thumb before placing the bottle in her mouth. Jemma closes her eyes and listens to the sound of May’s heartbeat as she sucks the cool water from the bottle. It’s very soothing, and Jemma finds herself feeling more relaxed than she has been in weeks. She almost falls asleep, but then her bladder decides to let her know that she needs to pee. She squirms and sighs around the bottle as her bladder becomes more insistent that she get up and go to the toilet.

“Are you wearing a pull-up?” May asks. Jemma shakes her head. May pulls the bottle out of her mouth and Jemma lets out an annoyed whine. “Let’s get you to the bathroom then,” May says, gently pushing Jemma upright so that she’s seated on May’s lap instead of leaning against the woman. Jemma puts her dummy in her mouth and climbs off the bed. She waits for May to take her hand and lead her into the en suite. May pulls down her sweatpants and underwear for her and turns away as Jemma sits on the toilet and starts to pee. “Would you like to wear a pull-up?” May asks, pulling out a package from under the sink.

Jemma considers the offer as she finishes using the toilet. She does like the comfort and feeling of safety the pull-up provides even though she doesn’t need them like Skye. “Yes?” she answers. It comes out sounding like a question, but May understands that she doesn’t mean it to be. She hands a pull-up to Jemma who stares at it as she kicks off her sweatpants and underwear. The pull-up is pink and has flowers on it. She puts her legs through the holes and stands up, sliding it on the rest of the way. She looks at her sweatpants on the floor of the bathroom and decides to leave them there. When Skye is feeling really little, she only wears a nappy and t-shirt, which makes her look little too. Now Jemma is feeling pretty little, so she wants to look how she’s feeling. She flushes the toilet and goes to wash her hands.

“Will you read to me?” she asks Mommy as they go back into the bedroom.

“Of course,” Mommy answers. “What would you like to read?”

Jemma shrugs. She doesn’t care. She just wants to drink her bottle and listen to Mommy’s voice. She climbs back onto the bed while May goes to the bookshelf and scans the titles. Eventually May selects a book and brings it with her to the bed. Jemma looks at the cover while May gets herself situated. There are three children, a boy, an even younger boy, and a girl, standing in a bubble with a dove-like creature above them. It’s titled _A Wrinkle in Time_.

“Have you read this one before?” May asks as Jemma settles back against her. Jemma shakes her head. Her childhood had been spent reading books and research articles on scientific theories and hypotheses. She hadn’t seen the point in children’s stories with so much out there to learn. “I think you’ll like it. The main character is very smart, just like you.” Jemma holds the bottle so that May has her hands free to hold the book. She starts drinking while May opens the book and begins to read. “It was a dark and stormy night.”

They get through the first three chapters before May closes the book with a yawn. Jemma yawns too and nuzzles at May’s breast sleepily. May puts the book and bottle on the bedside table and nudges Jemma up so that they can go into the en suite and brush their teeth. When they’re finished, they go back to the bedroom and Jemma climbs into bed. May leaves the bathroom light on and cracks the door before she turns out the lights in the bedroom and joins Jemma in bed. Jemma cuddles Ben close to her and sucks her dummy, watching May through partially closed eyes as the woman checks the alarm on her phone.

“G’night, Mommy,” Jemma mumbles around her dummy. “Love ’oo.”

“Good night, darling,” May responds as she settles down in bed and turns on her side to face Jemma. “I love you too.”


	5. Part Five: Lance and Mama May

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May comforts Lance on their way to Spain and on the way back to The Playground after they find Bobbi. Takes place during 2x21 and 2x22.

Lance stares out at the night sky as they fly toward Spain. May is in the pilot’s seat next to him and a team of agents sits in the jump seats behind them. He hugs himself tightly as thoughts of what Ward and Agent 33 are doing to Bobbi run through his head. He wishes he had Toby with him. It would be nice to hug the dinosaur while he worried.

He’d been so angry with Bobbi over the “Real SHIELD” betrayal. He’d acted on that anger in small ways: silent treatment, pranks. Eventually he’d have gotten over it and they’d have made up, but now that Bobbi had been taken from him, all he can think about is how much he loves her. All he wants is to get her home safely.

He sighs and glances at the controls, wishing there was some way to make time go faster. May glances over at him. “We’ll find her; I promise you that.” She tells him. There’s a quiet moment and then May begins speaking again. “She’s been trained to withstand a lot, and she’s good at it. I saw her once, at the Academy. She was the strongest recruit I’d ever seen. She’ll be better now. She has experience.”

“Bobbi’s tough,” Lance says, “much tougher than me. Whatever they’re doing to her; she won’t go down without a fight.”

Sometime later, they reach the quinjet in Spain. Lance and May get out with May ordering the other agents to stand by for further orders. They go into the plane, which has clearly been abandoned. He and May search for any possible clue of where they had gone next, but there’s nothing. Lance drops down into one of the jump seats and looks up at May helplessly.

“Now what?” he asks her.

“Now we find her,” May says simply.

“But how? The bloody trail’s gone cold.”

May kneels down in front of him and takes his hands in hers. “Lance,” she says gently and Lance looks at her in surprise. He hasn’t seen this side of May before. “We’re going to find her. I promised you, and I don’t break my promises. Okay?”

He wishes she’d lie to him, tell him that everything is going to be fine and that they’ll find Bobbi and Agent 33 on a beach drinking sangria and complaining about Hunter and Ward. She doesn’t though, so he nods and stands up.

“Check your phone to see if we can track Bobbi that way,” May instructs him. He does, but there’s nothing.

They go back to their quinjet and Lance holds tightly to his fantasy of Bobbi happy on a beach. May takes off and Lance keeps checking his phone while thoughts of the happier times he’d had with Bobbi run through his mind. Finally he checks it and sees that Bobbi’s phone is back in service. He traces it and May turns the plane around. Maybe things will truly be okay after all?

 

~*~*~*~

 

It’s not okay. Ward and Agent 33 had tortured Bobbi and then she’d taken a bullet in the shoulder. They take her to the quinjet and May takes off while Hunter starts working with the other agents to stabilize Bobbi. Agent Finch takes Bobbi’s blood pressure and pulse while Hunter applies pressure to the bullet wound. May puts the plane on autopilot and comes back to help.

“The plane is flying as fast as it can,” May tells them. “I’ve alerted Coulson and the team so they’ll be ready when we land.”

They’re able to slow the bleeding, but Bobbi’s pulse and blood pressure continue to drop. May goes up front to give an update to Simmons. Hunter knows that she needs medical attention ASAP. He goes to join May at the front of the plane. “How much longer?”

“A little over half an hour,” May answers.

Hunter punches the seat. “We might not have that long!” May stares at him with a blank expression and Hunter sits down, putting his head into his hands. “I can’t lose her,” he says quietly. “I couldn’t handle it.”

“We’re doing everything we can to save her, Lance,” May says in that same gentle tone she’d used in Spain. “Tell me about how you met.”

He thinks back to that night. He thinks about how beautiful she’d looked on that pier, the very picture of a goddess. She’d taken his breath away and he’d fallen in love at first sight. “We met in the Outer Banks, in North Carolina. I was on leave from the army and wanted someplace quiet to go. I dunno why she was there. Probably some SHIELD mission knowing her. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I went up to her, prob’ly said some cheesy chat up line, we started talking, had some drinks, went back to mine. It was the best night of my life.”

“What happened after the Outer Banks?” May asks.

“The second time we met was in London. She’d come with Isabelle and Jane and I was able to wheedle a weekend’s leave from my CO and join them. I took them all over, played tour guide. At the end of the weekend, that’s when I knew I wanted to marry her.” Hunter stares out the window, lost in thoughts of Bobbi.

“Ma’am!” Agent Finch’s voice calls out urgently, breaking Hunter out of his reverie. “She’s not breathing!”

May and Hunter jump up and hurry back to Bobbi. May grabs the bag valve mask from the first aid kit and puts it over Bobbi’s face. Lance starts squeezing the bag while May holds the mask in place. Agent Finch takes over when May has to go land the plane. They’re met by agents with a stretcher and Hunter and May hurry alongside Bobbi as they wheel her to the makeshift hospital room.

Hunter listens as May describes Bobbi’s condition. “She stopped breathing just before we landed,” he adds. Simmons and the other agents start prepping Bobbi for surgery and Hunter stands back, watching, feeling helpless. “Don’t die,” he whispers.

May comes to stand next to him and places a hand on his shoulder. “She’s in good hands now,” she tells him. “Bobbi’s a fighter; she’ll get through this.”

They stand there in silence as they watch the medical team work. Bobbi makes it through the surgery and Hunter can only feel relief even as Simmons describes the extent of her injuries. Bobbi is going to be okay. She’ll need a long time to heal, but she will heal.

May gives him a small smile at the news and squeezes his shoulder. “Go be with her,” she tells him. “I’ll check on you after we get back from _The Iliad_.” She turns to go, but Lance stops her.

Impulsively he gives her a quick hug, letting go as he mutters “thank you, for everything.”

She reaches out to touch his arm. “Of course,” she says gently.

Lance watches her leave before going over to stand next to Bobbi’s bed. He takes her hand and just looks at her, feeling overwhelmed at the thought of what could have been, and relieved that the worst case scenario hadn’t happened. Simmons places a hand on his shoulder and smiles at him before leaving. He turns back to Bobbi and silently vows to get revenge on Ward. No one hurts the people Lance Hunter loves and gets away with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is a bit shorter than my other chapters, and there's not really any age play, but I thought it was important to show Hunter and May bonding. In other news, I've plotted out the rest of the fic, so at least I know where I'm taking this now. I really only have time to write on the weekends thanks to work, so expect updates then. I can't promise an update every weekend, but I'll do my best. Thanks for reading!


	6. Part Six: Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May and Coulson take care of Skye, Jemma, Leo, and Lance after the events of 2x22.

SKYE

 

She manages to hold it together until they reach the base. She spends the flight back to The Playground doing the breathing exercises May had taught her, and it helps her appear outwardly calm as she watches the agents take her father to a cell and Simmons hurry Coulson into the makeshift hospital to treat his unexpected amputation. Only once they’re out of sight does she turn to May and let the tears start to fall.

May moves forward and embraces Skye. “Come on, baby, let’s get somewhere more private,” Mommy says quietly.

She brings Skye to her bedroom and they settle onto the bed where Skye allows herself to fully let go and sob in her Mommy’s arms. “M-M-Mommy,” she sobs.

“I’ve got you, baby girl,” Mommy tells her. “I’ve got you.”

“I was s-so s-scared.”

“You’re safe now.” Safe. Skye likes safe. Safe is when Mommy and Daddy are there taking care of her. Safe is when she can be little and not have to worry about grown-up problems like her birth parents or being Inhuman. Safe is when she can just be Skye.

Mommy keeps murmuring kind, soothing words, but Skye is crying too hard to pay attention to what she’s saying. She just focuses on Mommy’s even, steady breaths and tries to match her own ragged breathing to hers. It helps her calm down and she’s able to stop crying. “Mommy,” she whimpers, clinging to her.

“I’ve got you, baby,” Mommy repeats.

“Want my blanket,” Skye says and sticks her thumb in her mouth. Mommy has to shift away from her to pull the blanket out from under the pillow and Skye nearly starts to cry again. She calms down again as soon as the blanket is in her hand and Mommy’s arms are wrapped around her again. Skye feels the familiar ache of her bladder and whimpers around her thumb.

“Do you need a diaper, baby?” Mommy asks. Skye nods and rubs her blanket against her cheek. It’s the green one Coulson had bought her after the Hydra revelation. That time seems like a really long time ago. She doesn’t know where her other blanket and elephant are. Maybe back at the cabin? She’d brought them with her and definitely didn’t have them when Gordon had taken her away. Mommy lets her go, moving to get up and get a diaper for her and this time Skye does start to cry again.

“No! Don’t leave!”

“I have to get a diaper, baby,” Mommy says gently. “I’m just going into the bathroom. You’ll be able to see me the whole time.” Skye continues to cry even as she watches Mommy go into the bathroom and gather the diapers and wipes and everything she’ll need. Mommy talks to her the whole time; narrating what she’s doing and what they’re going to do after Skye has her diaper change. “We’re going to get my Skye clean, and then we’re going to take a shower so we can both be clean, and then my Skye is going to have a bottle and take a nap.”

A bottle and nap sounds like a good idea to Skye. She stops crying once Mommy comes back and starts putting a diaper on her. She sucks her thumb and hides her face in her blanket as she wets the diaper. She feels so little. She hasn’t had the chance to be truly little in weeks. Not since Daddy—Coulson, she corrects herself, it was Director Coulson who made the decision to send her away for everyone’s safety, not Daddy—had left her at the cabin. She’d still wet the bed at Afterlife. Lincoln and Gordon had figured it out pretty quickly while she was transitioning. Gordon had gone and got pull-ups for her. He and Lincoln had been surprisingly kind about it. They never made a big deal and they’d both promised to keep it a secret.

Mommy cleans her up when she’s finished, but doesn’t put a new diaper on. “Can you get up for me, Skye?” she asks. “We’re going to take a shower now.”

Skye reluctantly sits up and leaves her blanket on the bed. She holds tightly to Mommy’s hand as Mommy leads her into the bathroom and turns on the shower. She has to let go in order for Mommy to undress, which is really hard, but she survives. She follows Mommy into the shower and finds herself relaxing as the hot water soothes her sore muscles. Mommy takes care of washing her body and hair and Skye is happy that she doesn’t have to worry about it. She’s too little to be in charge of herself right now.

After their shower, Mommy changes her into a diaper, sweatpants, and t-shirt. She brushes Skye’s hair gently and braids it for her. Mommy kisses the top of Skye’s head when she’s finished. “Let’s go to the kitchen and get your bottle, okay?”

Skye wads her blanket up as small as she can and stuffs it into the pocket of her sweatpants. She keeps one hand in her pocket and the other holding May’s as they walk to the kitchen. “Where’s my other blanket and Ada Lovelace?” she asks on the way.

“Coulson has them,” May answers. “He brought them back with him after he and Hunter went to the cabin to figure out what happened to you.”

They reach the kitchen to find Fitz and Hunter sitting at the island. Fitz is snacking on popcorn and babbling to the glum looking Hunter about something science-y. Skye can’t understand what he’s talking about. Hunter is staring at the mostly full bottle of beer in front of him; he’s torn off the label and is absently shredding it. He doesn’t look like he’s paying any attention to Fitz’s prattle. She keeps hold of Mommy’s hand as she moves around the kitchen, getting a bottle from the shelf and then filling it with apple juice. She doesn’t mind that Hunter is seeing her like this, especially since it doesn’t appear like he’s paying any attention to what’s going on around him.

 

LANCE

 

Hunter lets the sound of Fitz’s jabbering wash over him as he nurses his beer. It’s interesting, he thinks to himself. Ever since he’d started doing this age play thing he hasn’t desired alcohol as much. Normally at night he’d drink a few beers to unwind and relax before bed. The past couple nights he’d been Lance, and he’s realized that being Lance is just as relaxing as a having a drink.

He’s not relaxed at the moment though. Bobbi’s still unconscious in that hospital bed and he should be right next to her side. Instead he’s in the kitchen with Fitz. Simmons had kicked them out once the team from _The Iliad_ had returned with some needing medical attention. The sight of Coulson’s bloody arm missing its hand is going to be a hard image to forget.

He picks at the label he’s torn off the bottle, tearing it into little pieces as May and Skye enter. Skye is holding May’s hand and has her other hand shoved in the pocket of her sweatpants. She’s eyeing him warily, so he keeps his head down, pretending he hasn’t noticed them. He watches out of the corner of his eye as Skye trails so closely behind May it’s as if they’re joined at the hip. It’s clear she’s been crying. _Poor kid._ He can’t even imagine what’s going on in her head after having her own mum betray her.

“Boys,” May interrupts his thoughts (and Fitz) and he looks up at her, “I’m going to put Skye down for a nap. Do you want to come with us and we can play a game once she’s asleep?”

“Can we play Mouse Trap?” Leo asks immediately.

“Yes,” May answers.

“Do you want to, Lance?” Leo turns to ask him.

“Fine,” Lance says cheerlessly. He’d rather be with Bobbi of course, but Simmons had made it very clear that he isn’t allowed back in until she says so.

He leaves the beer and follows Leo out of the kitchen to the common room with the games cupboard. Leo immediately grabs Mouse Trap and Operation. Lance eyes his options; he’s not in the mood for games, but maybe it will get the picture of Bobbi unconscious in the hospital bed out of his head for a few minutes. Eventually, he decides on Ticket to Ride and Uno and follows Leo as he leads the way to May’s room.

May is sitting on the bed when they enter. Skye is resting in her arms, eyes closed as she sucks on the bottle. She’s cuddling a green blanket the same way one would cuddle a soft toy, the same way Lance has seen Leo cuddle his monkey. She looks young and small in May’s arms.

May smiles at them as they enter. “What games did you pick?” she asks quietly. They put their choices on the end of the bed to show her.

“I want to play Mouse Trap first,” Leo tells her.

“Let’s play one of the quieter games while Skye naps,” May says.

Leo makes an annoyed sound but doesn’t argue. “Uno or Ticket to Ride, Lance?” Lance just shrugs, not really caring either way. Leo decides on Ticket to Ride and takes the box to a spot on the floor by the bed. Lance joins him on the floor, hugging his knees to his chest as he watches Leo set up the game. By the time he’s finished, May is sitting cross-legged in between the boys.

The game doesn’t do much to help Lance stop worrying about Bobbi. He keeps glancing at the door at every little sound hoping it’ll be Simmons coming to tell him that he can go back to her. He loses horribly due to the distractions and scoots away from the board once May has won.

“Do you want to go again?” Leo asks.

Lance shakes his head. Skye starts to whimper in her sleep and May gets up to check on her. Lance and Leo put the game away while May cuddles Skye and rubs her back, speaking softly in her ear in order to wake her up from the nightmare. “Wake up, Skye. It’s okay. It’s just a bad dream, baby. You’re safe.”

Skye opens her eyes and looks at May. Lance watches as her face crumples and she starts to cry. “Mommy,” she says and May holds her tighter.

“I’m here, baby. You’re safe. It’s okay.”

After he finishes putting the game away, Leo climbs on the bed and cuddles up against Skye’s other side. Lance hesitates for a second before also joining them on the bed. They shift around so that Lance can fit between Leo and the edge of the bed without too much fear of falling off. It’s a very tight fit, but they all manage to squeeze together on the bed. He rests his head on Leo’s shoulder as Leo talks quietly to Skye about some made up story. While he lies there listening, he realizes how tired he is from everything that has been going on; not just physically tired, but mentally tired too. He feels drained. He closes his eyes and lets Leo and Skye’s quiet chatter soothe him to sleep.

 

MELINDA

 

She waits until Skye is calm and distracted by Leo before she gets off the bed. It’s really too crowded with four adult bodies. She should talk to Coulson about building an apartment on the base to be their safe space where the kids can be little and they can be Mommy and Daddy without anyone else knowing. They could have an extra large bedroom with a couple beds pushed together to create enough space for everyone, and their own private kitchen so they don’t have to keep going to the shared kitchen on the base for bottles.

Skye turns to look at her the instant she moves, anxiety and fear clearly written all over her face. Melinda gives her a reassuring smile as she reaches out to stroke her hair. “I’m not going anywhere, baby. I just needed a bit more room.”

“Can we play Mouse Trap now?” Leo asks. “Will you play with me, Skye?”

“Lance is asleep now,” May points out, a bit unnecessarily since Lance is partly on top of Leo.

Leo scoffs. “It won’t wake him. He sleeps through his alarm every morning while the rest of us get to listen to the bloody Sex Pistols on repeat until he finally hits the snooze button or someone yells at him to turn it off.”

“Yeah,” Skye adds, “God Save the Queen every single morning.”

May is suddenly very glad that her room is nowhere near Hunter’s. “All right.” Skye gets off the bed first leaving Leo to gently shift Lance off of him and onto the pillows. Lance lets out an irritated whine at the movement but doesn’t wake up even as his arms reach out to hold on to Leo.

“You should go get Toby for him,” Leo says to May as he starts to set up the game on the floor next to the bed. “And Henry for me, and Skye’s elephant and blanket for her.”

“Toby and Henry?” May asks, confused.

“Toby is Lance’s dinosaur and Henry is my monkey.”

“I didn’t know Lance had a dinosaur.”

“It’s the one Coulson bought for me. I gave him to Lance so he’d have something.”

May wouldn’t mind going to check on Coulson, Bobbi, and Simmons. She looks at Skye who’s sucking her thumb and rolling the green mouse around in her other hand. She’s not sure if Skye will be okay with her leaving even with Leo and Lance there. She kneels down next to her and Skye looks at her, putting on a brave face, though the quivering chin gives away her true feelings. “I won’t be gone longer than 15 minutes,” May promises, “and I’ll bring you Ada Lovelace and your blanket.”

Skye reaches out for a hug, holding tightly to May. May is just starting to wonder if she’ll let go on her own when she whispers, “come back,” and does so. May gives her a kiss on the forehead and ruffles Leo’s hair as she stands up.

~*~*~*~

Melinda schools her face into a neutral expression as she enters the makeshift hospital. Phil is sitting up in his bed staring at his left arm, which is now in a sling. “Hey,” she says to him, standing next to the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Like someone chopped my hand off,” he replies, “oh, wait . . .” May rolls her eyes. “How are the kids?”

“Skye is having a hard time; I can’t leave her too long. Leo’s helping to distract her, and himself, I think. They’re playing Mouse Trap. Lance would obviously prefer to be here with Bobbi, but he’s taking a nap right now, which he needs.”

“Maybe you could bring them by later, once Simmons allows it? I’d like to see them.”

“Of course,” May gives a brief smile and places her hand on his shoulder. “Get some rest, okay?”

“You should too,” Phil replies.

Melinda goes over to Bobbi’s bed next where Simmons is checking her vital signs. “How is she?”

“Her vital signs are very strong, considering everything that’s happened,” Simmons replies as she makes a note on her clipboard.

“And how are you?”

Simmons pauses, then turns to May with a bright smile. “I’m doing fine, Agent May.”

“Well, when you’re able to take a break, come to my room, if you’d like.”

“Thank you, Agent May,” Simmons responds, keeping the bright smile on her face.

 

PHIL

 

Phil watches as May leaves the room. He can clearly see the exhaustion in her body and wishes that he was able to go with her and help take care of the kids, especially Skye. Leaving her at that cabin had been one of the hardest decisions he’d had to make as director, and even then it didn’t keep her safe. He will always regret that he hadn’t been able to protect her from the pain she’d been through over the past few weeks.

He wants to be there for Leo too. From what May had said, it sounds like Leo’s trying to keep his emotions bottled up inside him, which isn’t good. It will just lead to a meltdown later when he’s no longer able to keep it under control. At least Lance seems to be dealing with things appropriately, as in he didn’t go and get blindingly drunk after Simmons made him leave.

Speaking of Simmons, she comes over to him with that forced smile on her face. She may be getting better at lying, but she needs more work on masking her true feelings. “How are you feeling, sir? Do you need more pain medication?”

“Yes, more pain killers would be nice. Thank you, Simmons.”

“Of course,” she brings the pills to him along with a cup of water and waits while he swallows them. “You should try to sleep now.”

“Yes, Doctor,” he smiles at her and receives a more genuine smile in response.

 

JEMMA

 

It’s quiet in their makeshift hospital now, except for the noise of the machines. Coulson is sleeping and Bobbi is still unconscious. They’re the only two agents with injuries bad enough to stay overnight. She sits down and absently rubs her stomach, which is tense and hurting from the stress. She hopes she’s been able to do enough for Bobbi. Her degrees are in Biology and Chemistry, not Medicine, though she certainly picked up a lot at the Academy, Sci-Ops, and in the field. She’d never forgive herself if Bobbi died under her watch. She’s pretty sure Hunter would never forgive her either.

She covers her mouth with her hand as she yawns and a desire for her dummy and Ben Bunny runs through her mind. May had told her to come join them when she was able to take a break, and now is the perfect time. Neither patient needs attention, and Agent Finch is available should anything happen. She yawns again as she considers the idea. _No,_ she decides. _If anything were to happen while I was gone . . . but maybe I can just rest my eyes?_ A short nap is probably the best compromise between taking a break and staying here, she figures. She rests her head on her arms on top of the table and is asleep within minutes.

It seems like only seconds have passed when a hand on her shoulder is shaking her awake. She sits up and it takes her a few seconds to process where she is and what’s happening. May is standing next to her. Skye and Leo are sitting on Coulson’s bed talking to him. Lance has resumed his place next to Bobbi. She checks her watch and is shocked to find she had been asleep for nearly an hour and a half.

“Why did you let me sleep so long?” she asks Agent Finch, who’s sitting off to the side reading a magazine.

The agent shrugs. “You looked like you needed it. Nothing was going on anyway until they showed up about 20 minutes ago.”

“We were just about to leave,” May speaks up. “You should come with us, Simmons.”

“Yeah,” Agent Finch agrees. “Go sleep in a proper bed. I can hold down the fort here.”

“No, I should really stay,” Jemma starts to say as she moves to check on Bobbi.

“Simmons,” Coulson cuts her off and she turns to look at him.

“Sir?”

“Go with May. Agent Finch will let you know if you’re needed.”

“But—”

“That’s an order, Agent Simmons.”

She shrinks a bit at the sternness of his tone and meekly replies, “Yes, sir.”

“Let’s leave Coulson to get some sleep,” May says. Skye gives Coulson a hug goodbye. Fitz makes a movement like he’s going to as well, but stops and gives an anxious look to Agent Finch. They go to join May by the door and Jemma reluctantly goes too. “Hunter?”

“I’m stayin’ here,” Hunter says firmly and May nods.

They reach May’s bedroom and go in. Skye makes her way straight to the bed where her elephant and blankets are. Jemma spies Ben sitting next to Henry on the bed and grabs both the animals. She passes Leo his monkey and the young man immediately hugs it to his chest. He nibbles at his thumb and gives Jemma a nervous look. “I’m gonna go to my room,” he says.

“You can stay if you’d like,” May tells him.

He shakes his head and glances at Jemma again. “No, there’s not enough room on the bed.”

Jemma can’t help but wonder if she’s the real reason he’s leaving. They still need to have that talk after all.

“All right,” May says, going over and giving him a hug and kiss on the cheek. “Have a good night, kiddo. If you change your mind, you can always come back.”

“Good night,” Leo responds as he leaves.

 

MELINDA

 

Melinda goes to the dresser to find pajamas for Jemma. She grabs a pull-up from the package in the bathroom and brings it all over to the bed where Jemma sits, hugging her bunny. “Do you want help changing?” May asks. Jemma shakes her head, taking the pajamas and pull-up from May. May turns back to the dresser to find pajamas for herself. She quickly changes, and then goes to the bathroom to put toothpaste on the toothbrushes. “Come brush your teeth, girls!” she calls out.

Skye and Jemma come into the bathroom and the three of them stand around the sink brushing their teeth. After checking Skye to see if she’s wet, May grabs a new diaper from the package on their way out of the bathroom and has Skye lie down on the bed to be changed.

“Will you read more of the tesseract story?” Jemma asks.

“What tesseract story?” Skye wants to know.

“A Wrinkle in Time,” May answers. “I started reading it to Jemma the other night.”

“I think I read that one,” Skye says. “Isn’t that the one where the kids have to rescue their dad from an evil brain thing?”

“Don’t spoil it!” Jemma cries as May nods in answer to Skye’s question.

“Sorry.”

May gets the book and climbs into bed. Skye immediately glues herself to May’s side, thumb in mouth, hugging her elephant and blankets to her chest. Jemma finds a pacifier in the nightstand drawer and climbs into bed on May’s other side. May opens the book and begins to read from where she stopped the night before. Skye falls asleep before she’s finished the chapter, and Jemma falls asleep not long after that. May closes the book and reaches over Jemma to put it on the nightstand. It’s hot with both girls’ bodies pressing against her. She loves them, and sharing a bed with them, but she can’t help but feel a bit smothered. Still, they need her, and she’s their Mommy, so she’ll deal with being uncomfortable if it means her babies are content.


	7. Part Seven: The Doctor Is In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Garner arrives to provide therapy to the team. Takes place at the end of 2x22.

PHIL

 

“Andrew,” Phil smiles warmly at the man walking down the quinjet’s ramp, “I’m glad you were able to come.”

“From what May has told me, it sounds like you could use a good therapist around here,” Dr. Garner replies, holding out his hand to shake Coulson’s.

They make their way to Coulson’s office in companionable silence. Once there, Phil hands over two files, commenting, “All our reports on what happened on _The Iliad_ and with Jiaying and the Inhumans, as well as what Ward did to Agent Morse.”

While he waits for Dr. Garner to finish reading, Phil tugs on the strap of his sling, trying to get it to a more comfortable position. “You want to talk about it?” Andrew offers, not looking up from the files. Phil is saved from having to answer by Melinda entering the room. She sits next to Andrew in the chair across from Phil’s desk and they wait in silence until he finishes the files. “No wonder you called me in,” he comments when he’s done, placing the folders on Phil’s desk.

“Ever since the battle, Skye has had severe separation anxiety,” Phil begins. “She has to be next to either Melinda or myself unless she’s sleeping or distracted by Leo, Jemma, or Lance. And even when she’s distracted we can’t be gone for more than 20 minutes without her becoming very upset.”

“She has nightmares every night,” Melinda adds. “Some have been bad enough that she’s vomited after, but she won’t talk about them, at least not with me.”

“Nor me,” says Phil.

“From what I’ve been able to tell from her talking before I can wake her up, she’s dreaming about her biological parents.”

“I’ve tried asking Cal about what happened, but he’s refusing to say anything or even acknowledge my presence.”

“Where is Skye now?” Andrew asks.

“I put her down for a nap about 10 minutes before you arrived,” Phil answers, checking his watch. “She’ll sleep for another 40 minutes or so.”

Andrew pulls a small notebook and pen out of the inside pocket of his jacket and opens it. “Skye,” he mutters as he starts writing, “nightmares, separation anxiety, appears to be tied to her birth parents . . . does she still struggle with her powers?”

“No,” May answers. “While living in the Inhuman community she learned how to control them.”

“And she’s still little?”

“Yes, she’s been in her little headspace ever since the battle.”

“All right, who’s next?”

“Leo,” Phil says and then clarifies, “Fitz.”

“He’s also a little?”

“Yes, he’s Leo when he’s little and Fitz the rest of the time.”

Andrew flips to a new page in his notebook. “Tell me about him.”

“About a year ago he suffered a traumatic brain injury and was deprived of oxygen while underwater leading to cerebral hypoxia,” Coulson begins. “He was in a coma for nine days and when he woke up he struggled with expressive aphasia, emotional lability, and hand tremors. He’s slowly improved over the past year with medication and therapy. Now he’s back to bottling up his emotions and pretending everything is fine.”

“What is his little side like?”

“Leo is very physically affectionate, but very uncertain about it. He likes to play games, especially Mouse Trap. He’s older than the girls in his headspace; I’d say around 6 or 7. He doesn’t need or want diapers or pull-ups. He also has nightmares, mostly about Ward and what happened when he and Simmons were trapped in the ocean.”

“Simmons has a lot of anxiety,” May speaks up and Andrew turns to a new page. “She also likes to pretend everything is fine. She throws herself into her work in order to distract herself, and we have to order her to take a break. Her anxiety takes her appetite away, so making sure she has enough to eat can be an issue too. She’s little as well, but sometimes needs,” May pauses as she searches for the right words, “permission to actually let herself be little. She needs a lot of reassurance from Phil and I that it’s okay for her to be as little as she needs to be.”

“Lance, or Hunter, is our newest little,” Phil says. “He seems to be handling things the best out of all of them.”

“He didn’t fight in the battle on _The Iliad_ ,” May informs Andrew. “Ward and Agent 33 kidnapped Bobbi, who is Hunter’s ex-wife.”

“Aren’t they dating again?” Coulson interjects.

“Not officially,” May answers. “Hunter and I rescued Bobbi from Ward, and he was obviously very upset by what was done to her. He’s barely left her side since we brought her back.”

“And he has a little side as well?” Andrew asks, flipping to another page in his notebook.

“Yes,” Coulson answers. “I’d suspected he had one when we first met, but he’s only just started exploring his little side this past week. We haven’t had too much one-on-one time with him, so we don’t know a lot about Lance. He’s spent a lot of time exploring his little side by playing with Leo. He’s seemed uncertain about my role in the brief time I’ve spent with him in his little headspace.”

“So, Skye, Leo, Jemma, and Lance,” Andrew comments. He flips to yet another new page in his notebook and looks at Phil expectantly. “Anyone else?”

“Bobbi and Mack,” Phil responds. “They’re not little, but they could both use a session with you to see how everything has affected them. Mack quit but then got caught up in the battle on _The Iliad_ and since then he’s been sticking around. I think I’ve been able to convince him to stay, but I’d like you to talk to him about what he’s experienced.”

“And Bobbi?”

“Bobbi was trained to withstand torture,” May states, “but even with that training, going through what she went through had to have an effect on her psychological state.”

“Of course,” says Andrew as he closes his notebook and puts it back in his jacket pocket. “All right, who am I seeing first?”

 

LEO

 

Leo chews on his fingers and bounces slightly on the balls of his feet as he waits for Dr. Garner to open the door to the conference room where he’ll be conducting his therapy sessions. He had therapy for a while after his brain injury, but this is the first time he’s met with May’s ex. He doesn’t think he needs to see Dr. Garner, but Coulson had insisted. He winces as he bites a bit too hard on his fingers and pulls them out of his mouth to check the damage. There are obvious teeth marks, but he didn’t break the skin.

The door opens and Dr. Garner appears, smiling kindly at him. “Hi, Fitz,” he says, “come on in.” Leo enters, takes a seat at the table, and starts shaking his leg as Dr. Garner closes the door and sits in the chair at the end of the table, adjacent to him. “Coulson asked me to talk to you about everything that’s been going on. Would you like to talk as Fitz or as Leo?”

Leo stops shaking his leg and looks at Dr. Garner, frowning. “You know about that?”

“Coulson and May told me about everyone’s little sides.”

Leo scowls and kicks at the chair leg. “Coulson’s always telling others without asking me first.”

“It’s an important detail for me to know,” Andrew explains. “I want this experience to be as comfortable for you as possible. I’ve worked with other littles, and sometimes it’s easier for them to talk to me in their little headspace. It’s your choice, though.”

“How is talking to you while I’m Leo different from talking to you while I’m Fitz?” Leo asks. “I’ll still be talking about the same things.”

“That’s a good question,” Leo rolls his eyes at the comment, which Andrew chooses to ignore. “I’ve found that when someone is working with me in their little headspace, they’re more open to sharing their big feelings, or sharing them in other ways such as through drawing a picture or playing with toys that they may be too self-conscious to do when they’re big.”

Leo chews on his knuckle as he thinks about what Dr. Garner has said. “I’m not good at drawing,” he says eventually, taking his knuckle out of his mouth.

“That’s okay,” Dr. Garner answers. “We could do something else instead of drawing. May says you like to play Mouse Trap. Would you like to play a game while we talk?”

“Okay.”

The game is already in the room, which means Dr. Garner must have prepared for the possibility that he would want to play and be Leo during their session. He’s not sure how he feels about that. He’s never been Leo around a stranger before, and Dr. Garner is a stranger even if he’s May’s ex. He wishes he had Henry with him. The monkey is very brave, much braver than Leo. Henry would be able to tell Dr. Garner about all the scary thoughts in Leo’s head that he sees at night when he’s asleep.

Dr. Garner waits until they’ve been playing for a few minutes before he starts talking. “I heard you came up with the way to trap the Inhuman teleporter.”

Leo nods as he adds another piece to the mouse trap. “Yeah, I modified my field generators to act as quantum field disruptors to keep him trapped in that room.” Leo would really love to talk more about how he’d done it, but he’s pretty sure Dr. Garner would just get confused, so he talks about Gordon instead. “He wasn’t happy about it. He kept trying to teleport, and ended up teleporting into my pipe.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Fine,” Leo says, “he killed himself, really. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“It wouldn’t be unusual to feel guilty—”

“I don’t feel guilty,” Leo says firmly, interrupting the other man. “He was a bad guy. We were trying to kill him. I just happened to be the one to do it.”

They keep playing in silence for a few more minutes before Dr. Garner brings up his next point. “When Gordon was killed, he dropped the terrigen crystal, which Coulson caught. Then Mack had to cut off Coulson’s hand to save him. That must have been scary to watch.”

Leo fiddles with his pieces of cheese as he considers how to answer. “Yeah,” he agrees, his tone flat. He focuses on the game, rolling the die and taking his turn. Dr. Garner just waits. Leo remembers this therapy trick from his previous counseling experiences. The therapist just waits until Leo gets too uncomfortable with the silence and starts talking. They finish building the mouse trap before Leo finally gets tired of the silence. “There was a lot of blood, and Coulson was screaming, and it was loud and hurt my ears.”

“That does sound scary,” Dr. Garner comments.

“Coulson was hurt and nearly died. He can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

Leo lets out a frustrated sigh and brings his hand to his mouth to chew on his fingers. Dr. Garner waits patiently, which just makes Leo feel even more frustrated. He starts shaking his leg as he picks the die up off the table. In his frustration, he tosses it harder than he should and the die slides across the table and falls over the edge. Leo crawls under the table to get it, and then just sits there rolling the die around in his hand as he chews the fingers of his other hand. He’s trying hard to tamp down the mix of anger, fear, and anxiety threatening to overwhelm him.

“Hey, Leo,” Dr. Garner says in a soft, gentle tone. He is kneeling on the floor now, peering at Leo with a concerned expression on his face. “Can you talk to me about what you’re thinking? Or you could draw a picture for me?” Leo shakes his head and bites down harder on his fingers. Focusing on the pain makes it easier to ignore the scary thoughts in his head. “You’re worried about Coulson.” Dr. Garner states, and Leo nods.

“I don’t . . . I don’t . . . I don’t,” Leo kicks at one of the chairs in anger as his aphasia makes a brief return. He takes a few deep breaths and flaps his hand as he works to calm down and get the words out. “I don’t want Da to die,” he admits and then grimaces as he realizes his mistake. “Coulson,” he quickly corrects himself. “I don’t want Coulson to die.”

“Can you come out from under the table for me so we can talk about that?” Dr. Garner asks.

Leo does so, and it helps. It helps to talk about his fear of losing the first father figure he’s ever had. They get on the subject of Coulson’s hand and need for a prosthetic. Leo shares some of his ideas with Dr. Garner, including his desire to make a prosthetic with super cool and useful features like maybe a laser finger.

He leaves the session feeling a lot better. He makes his way to the lab, ready to make sure everything gets put back where it’s supposed to go. God help the lab assistants if they put the test tubes somewhere other than the top shelf. T is for test tubes is for top shelf. He and Jemma had decided on that at the Academy.

 

JEMMA

 

Jemma waits outside the conference room for Dr. Garner to open the door and let her in. She glances at her watch hoping that this won’t take too long. She really should be down in the lab helping to supervise the clean up from Cal’s destruction. She doesn’t need to talk to Dr. Garner; she hasn’t been through anything traumatic like Skye or Bobbi, but Coulson had ordered. She’s tempted to disobey, just leave and pretend like she forgot about having to see Dr. Garner, but she knows that if she does, May will find her and make her go anyway. The door opens and she enters, ready to get it over with so she can go back to more important things.

She sits down at the table and crosses her arms as Dr. Garner sits down in the chair adjacent to her. He takes in her body language and comments, “You don’t want to be here.”

“No,” Jemma agrees. “I should be in the lab, supervising the cleanup with Fitz. He gets very impatient with the lab assistants. He’ll start shouting if one of them dares to put something back in the wrong place.”

“I want this experience to be as comfortable for you as possible, Jemma,” Dr. Garner says.

“I’d prefer Simmons,” she tells him coolly. Being called Jemma makes her think of the times she’s little, and that’s a side of her she’s not going to let any psychologist see.

“Of course,” he agrees. “Is there anything I can do to make this more comfortable for you, Simmons?”

“Let me go back to my work,” she says immediately.

Dr. Garner smiles at that. “I’m afraid that’s one thing I can’t do,” he says.

Jemma sighs and rolls her eyes. “Then do what you need to do to get your report for Coulson.”

“Coulson and May are worried about you,” Dr. Garner tells her. “They tell me you have a lot of anxiety,” he pauses to see if she’ll acknowledge what he just said, but when she remains silent he continues, “that you tend to throw yourself into your work in order to escape what you’re feeling.”

That’s accurate, but there’s no way Jemma will admit to it. “I throw myself into my work because it needs to get done; and if no one else will do it, then I have to.” She tells him curtly.

“You don’t feel comfortable delegating to the lab assistants?”

“They aren’t the best at following the systems Fitz and I have put in place. Sometimes Fitz is justified in his shouting.”

“May told me that you have trouble eating when you’re feeling anxious. Can you tell me about that?”

“I can, but I won’t,” she replies. Her tone is bordering on rude, but she doesn’t care. She just wants to get through this so she can go back to Fitz. “Are we through?”

“No,” Dr. Garner tells her, and his tone has become firmer in response to Jemma’s. “I need you to work with me, Jemma—”

“ _Simmons_ ,” she corrects him.

Andrew is silent for a few minutes while Jemma stares at her watch. “Since you don’t want to talk about what you’re feeling, maybe you could draw it for me?” he suggests.

Jemma sighs and rolls her eyes again. “You can’t draw feelings. They don’t have any physical form.”

“I disagree. When you’re feeling anxious, can’t you feel it in your body? Nausea, panic attacks?”

“Yes, but that’s not the same thing. Anxiety is a feeling and doesn’t have a shape or color. If I drew a black square, it would just be a black square, it wouldn’t be anxiety.”

“Not unless you assign that meaning to it.” Andrew puts a stack of blank paper on the table along with markers, crayons, and colored pencils. “Draw whatever you’d like,” he tells her.

Jemma picks up the box of colored pencils and begins to sketch and label the limbic system of the brain. When she’s finished she slides the paper across the table to Dr. Garner. “There, I drew feelings.”

Dr. Garner chuckles as he looks at her drawing. “Very good, Dr. Simmons. I appreciate that you drew that for me. Now, unless you have anything you’d actually like to talk to me about, I will let you get back to your work.”

“Finally,” Jemma mutters as she stands up, happy that the session is over.

“Please let Hunter know that I’m ready for him.” Dr. Garner requests as she makes her way to the door.

 

LANCE

 

The conference room door is open when Hunter arrives so he walks in and takes a seat at the table. Dr. Garner is busy writing something on a notepad. “I’ll be with you in just a minute, Hunter,” the man tells him without looking up. There’s paper and art supplies on the table, so Hunter grabs a piece of paper and a black colored pencil and begins drawing a gun while he waits.

“Thank you for waiting, Hunter,” Dr. Garner speaks up, breaking the silence. Hunter stops drawing and puts the colored pencil down. “Now, I want to make this as comfortable for you as possible. Coulson and May told me about your little side, and I want to offer you the opportunity to talk to me as Lance. I’ve worked with littles before and I’ve found that it can be easier for them to talk to me while in their headspace.”

“I don’t really know much about being little, Doc,” Hunter tells him, shifting in his chair so he can rest his ankle on his knee. “I’ve only just started trying to figure it out.”

“That’s okay,” Dr. Garner says. “You don’t need to have it figured out. I just wanted to offer you the choice.”

Hunter nods. “So, what does Coulson want us to talk about?”

“Coulson is concerned with how you’re handling what happened to Bobbi.”

“I thought I was handling it pretty well,” Hunter comments with a frown. “I haven’t gone AWL after Ward yet.”

“Do you want to?”

“Of course; I’d love to go smash his fucking face in for what he did. But I’m not gonna leave until Bobbi’s well enough.”

“Talk to me about what it was like, learning that Bobbi had been kidnapped, and then finding her like you did.”

Once Hunter starts talking, it’s hard to stop. It’s nice being able to get everything he’s feeling off of his chest. Dr. Garner mostly just listens, only asking questions when he wants to clarify something. When he runs out of things to say, he picks up the colored pencil again and starts to draw a bullet coming out of the gun. Dr. Garner waits, watching him. “This . . . this little thing,” he blurts out once the silence gets too oppressive, “you think it’s okay?”

“Yes, I think being little is just one way to cope with overwhelming thoughts and emotions.”

“I like it,” Lance admits as he colors in the bullet. “It’s nice, being able to escape from the world and just hang out with Leo and watch telly or play games.”

“A lot of littles find comfort in having a grown-up take care of them,” Dr. Garner remarks.

“You mean Coulson and May?”

“They’re willing, if you want them to. Of course, if you’d prefer to just be little with Leo, then that’s okay too. I know that they wouldn’t want to force you into anything you’re uncomfortable with.”

“I want it,” Lance admits, “I just need to take it slow, I guess.”

“That’s understandable.”

Lance slides his drawing toward Dr. Garner. “You want to keep it? Analyze it for sociopathic tendencies or something?”

Dr. Garner smiles. “Maybe I’ll give it to Coulson to put it on the fridge,” he suggests. Lance laughs. “I think we’re finished, unless there’s anything more you’d like to talk about.”

“No, thanks, Doc,” Lance says, standing up and holding out his hand to shake the doctor’s. “I’ve gotta go check on Bobbi and maybe help Fitz terrorize the lab assistants.”

 

SKYE

 

Skye is getting her diaper changed in Mommy’s bedroom. She has her thumb in her mouth and her other arm is holding her blankets and Ada close to her. She’s taken to keeping both of her blankets and her elephant with her at all times ever since getting back to the base. She’s been little ever since getting back as well. It helps her feel safe.

“Skye?” Mommy says, gently patting her thigh after she finishes taping up the diaper. “Can you focus for me?” Skye blinks to get herself out of the haze she’d fallen into while Mommy was changing her and sits up, looking into Mommy’s eyes to show she’s listening. “Coulson asked Andrew to come evaluate the team and it’s going to be your turn in about 15 minutes.”

Skye sucks her thumb as she thinks about that. “Do I gotta be big?” she asks around the digit. Normally Mommy would make her take her thumb out and repeat herself, but she’s been letting the little things slide a lot more frequently the past few days. Skye kind of misses the security of Mommy’s strictness.

“Only if you want to be,” Mommy answers. “Andrew is going to come in here for the session. We want you to be as comfortable as possible.”

“Will you stay?”

“Andrew wants to try talking with just you first,” Mommy says. Skye feels like she’s going to cry. Leaving Mommy has been really really hard the past couple days. “I’ll be close by if you need me,” Mommy promises.

They cuddle while they wait, and Skye is content just listening to Mommy’s heartbeat. A knock on the door interrupts the peace, and Skye takes a few deep breaths to keep herself calm as Mommy gets up to let Dr. Garner in. Dr. Garner smiles kindly at her as he places his bag on the end of the bed. Mommy gives her a hug and kiss. “I won’t be too far,” she says, and leaves the room, closing the door behind her. Skye stares at the door, trying hard to hold back the tears.

“Hi, Skye,” Andrew says, his voice soft and soothing. “How are you?” Skye shrugs, not trusting herself to speak without bursting into tears. “I brought paper and things to color with. I thought maybe you’d like to draw something for me.”

A couple tears slip out of her eyes and down her cheeks. She really wants to tell Dr. Garner to go get Mommy, but she also wants to show that she can be brave. She can’t stay little forever, no matter how much she might want to. “’Kay,” she says, her voice small. _Baby steps_ she tells herself. _Start by making it through this meeting with Dr. Garner_. He passes her paper on a clipboard and puts out boxes of markers, crayons, and colored pencils. Skye stares at the paper, uncertain of what to draw. She looks at Ada Lovelace, hoping the elephant can give her ideas. _Draw one of your dreams_ the elephant tells her; only Skye is able to hear her. _Maybe putting the scary things on paper will get them out of your head_.

That’s a good idea, so Skye picks up the box of markers and pulls out the gray one. Soon, the deck of _The Iliad_ begins to take form and then she’s drawn her mother with the box of terrigen crystals trying to suck the life out of Skye. When she’s finished she gives the drawing to Andrew, gets a new piece of paper, and starts drawing her mother killing Raina with Skye watching off to the side. When she’s finished with that, she starts another picture of her father killing her mother. “Can you tell me about them?” Dr. Garner asks when she’s handed over the third drawing and doesn’t start drawing any more.

Skye moves the pictures so that they’re in chronological order. “My mom, my birth mom,” she begins, her tone flat, “she killed Raina because Raina saw that she didn’t want peace, that she wanted to start a war. I saw her do it. Raina knew I was going to see. Then, on _The Iliad_ , I stopped her from escaping with the terrigen crystals. Her Inhuman power was to suck the life out of others. She tried to do that to me, but my birth dad stopped her. He killed her, snapped her spine.” Skye starts to cry and doesn’t try to stop herself. Dr. Garner places a hand on her shoulder as she buries her face into her blankets.

It feels good to tell someone about what happened, she decides when she’s stopped crying. Already, she feels like a weight has been lifted off of her shoulders. Someone else knows about what happened with her birth parents. Dr. Garner starts to ask questions and she ends up telling him about her nightmares and her need to be little and safe. “I think it’s a good thing that you can recognize your need to be little, Skye,” he tells her. “I’m glad you’re able to draw comfort from it.”

“I know I can’t be little forever,” she says, “but right now, I just need it.”

She yawns, and Dr. Garner says that they can be finished. “Thank you so much for drawing the pictures and talking to me, Skye,” he says as he packs up the art supplies. “You were very brave to talk to me without your Mommy. I’ll let her know she can come back in.”

Skye waves as he leaves. Mommy enters very quickly after, so Skye thinks maybe she was waiting in the hallway. She has a bottle in her hand, which makes Skye happy. She’ll be big someday, but right now she’s going to cuddle with her Mommy, drink her bottle, and then take a nap.

 

PHIL

 

Phil looks up at a knock on his door and waves Andrew in. “So, what’s the verdict?” he asks as the man sits down across the desk.

“Well, they could all benefit from long-term therapy,” Andrew begins. Phil doesn’t react; more therapy is always the first thing Andrew recommends. “Leo is worried about losing you; he’s very attached. Your getting hurt was upsetting to him. I’d recommend spending as much quality time with him as you can, and Lance as well. Lance likes the idea of having a caregiver, but he told me he wants to ease into it. Hunter desires revenge against Ward, but he’s not going to act on that until Bobbi is better, so you have some time to nip that in the bud. Simmons was mostly uncooperative, but I was able to get her to admit to feeling anxiety.” Phil frowns at that and makes a mental note to have a talk with Simmons.

“And Skye?” he asks.

“Skye is a very strong young woman. She went through a lot with meeting her birth parents, and I think it’s healthy that she’s seeking out you and May to fulfill those parental roles. Give her some more time to be little. It helps her feel safe, and she needs that right now. She’ll slowly get back to her old self after some time to deal with the trauma she experienced.”

“I want to put her in charge of a new program,” Phil tells him, proceeding to explain his plan.

 

MELINDA

 

Coulson is taking care of Skye that night, so Melinda sits in the empty kitchen enjoying some time alone and a cup of tea. Andrew enters and her heart starts beating faster as she takes in his handsome features. “Hi there,” he says, smiling at her as he goes to the cabinet for a glass. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” May replies automatically. He gives her a familiar ‘I-don’t-buy-it’ look and she elaborates. “I’m happy that it’s Coulson’s turn to have Skye for the night. I love her, and I know she needs us, but I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed with her need for nearly constant physical contact.”

“That does sound exhausting,” he comments, coming over to the table with his glass of water.

“And then add in the needs of Jemma and Leo and now Lance and it’s even more exhausting. I love my kids, I really do, but I wouldn’t mind a break from it all. Not just being a caregiver, but SHIELD in general. I was only supposed to drive the Bus, but look what that turned into.”

“You could take a break,” Andrew suggests. “Maybe go on vacation somewhere tropical with a tall, handsome, African-American man as your companion?”

May gives him a small smile. “Oh?”

“Yes, I was thinking maybe Hawaii?”

“Hawaii is beautiful,” May agrees.

Andrew looks down at his glass of water with a wrinkled brow. “You know,” he comments, “I think I’m more in the mood for something stronger.”

“Coulson has scotch in his office,” May tells him.

He gestures toward the door. “Please, lead the way.”


	8. Part Eight: Mama May Says Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May decides to go on vacation with Andrew. She has a goodbye moment with each of her children. Takes place at the end of 2x22.

MELINDA

 

Melinda zips up her suitcase as she finishes packing what she needs from her bedroom. She still needs to get a few things from her locker, but otherwise she’s ready to leave with Andrew. Just her and him. Alone. In Hawaii. With no mission or danger. Just a normal couple on vacation. She’s a bit nervous, and she’ll miss her team, but she’s also excited. It will be nice to have a break from the spy business.

She makes her way to the locker room and packs some more shirts and her bathing suit. She hesitates briefly before also taking her gun. It’s better to be safe than sorry. She zips her suitcase again and goes back to her bedroom. She wants to double check she’s not left anything out and get the small goodbye presents she’d got the kids. She hopes giving them something to remember her by will make her leaving easier for them.

~*~*~*~

She seeks out Lance first. He’s busy kicking a soccer ball around one of the inner courtyards. The ball bounces off the wall and heads her direction, so she stops it with her leg. Lance turns to get the ball and smiles when he sees her.

“Agent May! I thought you were on your way to sunny paradise with the Doc.”

“We’ll be leaving soon,” she says, smiling back at him. She kicks the soccer ball back to him. “I came to say goodbye.”

“Oh,” he says, and there’s a bit of an awkward silence before May motions him over to a bench.

“Lance,” she begins, and he turns to look at her. “I know you’ve just started exploring this side of you, and we haven’t really had the opportunity to figure out my role when you’re little, but I want you to know that I’m happy you’re one of the kids. I got you this to say goodbye.” May takes a Rubik’s Cube out of her bag and offers it to him.

Lance stares at it, but doesn’t take it. His face turns pale and he stares at it with a blank expression on his face.

“Lance?” May asks, concerned. He doesn’t appear to be breathing. “Lance, are you okay?” She places her fingers on his wrist to check his pulse and find it beating rapidly. “Lance, I need you to take a breath for me.” He takes a quick, shallow breath and May keeps talking, helping him through the panic attack.

“Sorry,” he mutters once he’s breathing again.

“There’s no need to apologize,” May tells him.

He takes a deep breath and begins talking. “My mum died when I was seven. She and my dad went on a holiday and I was upset that I didn’t get to go. Mum bought me a Rubik’s Cube before she left, told me that she wanted me to solve it by the time she got home. ’Cept she didn’t come home. She fell, hit her head; it was a freak accident.”

“Lance, I’m so sorry,” May says. “I can find something else—”

“No,” Lance says quickly. He reaches out and takes the Rubik’s Cube. “I bet Fitz can teach me lotsa tricks to solving it.” He twists the Rubik’s Cube a couple of times before looking at May, a serious expression on his face. “Just . . . don’t die out there.”

May reaches out and gives Lance a hug. “I won’t,” she tells him, knowing that he prefers to hear the platitude.

~*~*~*~

She goes to find Leo next. He’s playing a video game with Mack in the common room. “Fitz,” she calls out, standing in the doorway, “can I talk to you?”

“Okay,” he says, pausing the game and getting up.

May leads him to his own bedroom, figuring that he won’t want any witnesses to this gift. He opens the door and they enter.

“I wanted to say goodbye, Leo,” she tells him once he’s closed the door, “and to give you this.” She pulls out a box from her bag and hands it to him. Leo opens it to reveal a thick, black, silicone bracelet. “It’s for you to chew on instead of your hands and sleeves,” she explains. “I had thought about getting you an actual teething ring, but I thought something a bit more grown-up looking that was actually made for adult teeth would be better.”

“Thank you,” Leo says, examining the bracelet. He brings it to his mouth to try it out. “It’s different,” he says as he puts it on his dresser.

“I hope it will help,” May says, taking his hand and gently rubbing her thumb over the irritated skin of his fingers. “Be good while I’m gone, Leo.”

“Have fun in Hawaii,” he tells her.

They hug; then Leo opens the door, going back to Mack. May takes her bag and leaves to find Jemma.

~*~*~*~

Jemma is alone in the monolith room, working. “Jemma,” May says, entering. The young woman turns and smiles at May.

“I thought you were leaving for Hawaii, Agent May,” she says, setting down her equipment.

“We’ll be leaving soon. I came to say goodbye.” May pulls her copy of _A Wrinkle in Time_ out of her bag and hands it to Jemma. “I want you to have it, since we never got a chance to finish reading it together.”

“Thank you,” Jemma says. She looks at May and her careful mask briefly crumples. She rushes into May’s arms and hugs her tightly. “I’ll miss you, Mommy,” she whispers.

“I’ll miss you too, darling,” May tells her. She holds her baby until Jemma pulls away. “Don’t work too hard, Jemma. Try to have some fun while I’m away.”

“I’ll do my best,” the girl promises.

~*~*~*~

May leaves the monolith room and takes a deep breath. She has saved the hardest goodbye for last. She makes her way to Skye’s bedroom. Ever since talking with Andrew, Skye has been trying to conquer her separation anxiety by spending some time alone in her room each day.

“Come in,” Skye calls after May knocks on the door.

May opens the door and enters, closing it behind her. “Hi, baby,” she says gently.

“May,” Skye replies, her expression guarded.

“Andrew and I will be leaving soon, and I wanted to say goodbye.” Skye slips her thumb in her mouth and begins to suck. May opens her bag once more and pulls out a t-shirt and a cell phone. “I want you to have this shirt. I’ve been sleeping in it the past few nights; I’m hoping it will help comfort you when I’m gone.”

Skye takes the shirt and sniffs it. “It smells like you, Mommy,” she says.

“I’m glad,” May responds. She holds up the cell phone. “This is a prepaid cell phone. I’m going to keep it on me at all times, so that if you need to reach me, no matter the reason, you can. If you give me your phone, I’ll put the number in.” Skye grabs her phone and practically shoves it at May in her eagerness. May creates a new contact, putting the number under Mommy. “There,” she says, giving the phone back to Skye. “Don’t be afraid to contact me if you need me, Skye. I will always answer.”

Skye opens up her arms and May hugs her. “I love you, Mommy,” she says in May’s ear. “Please come back to me.”

“I love you too, baby,” May says. “I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you more.” There’s a knock on the door and they break apart. “Yes?” Skye calls out.

“It’s Andrew,” Andrew says. “Is May there?”

“I’m here,” May responds.

“We need to leave in about five minutes to go to the airport,” Andrew tells her.

“All right, I’ll meet you at the car.” She hears Andrew walk away and turns to Skye. “Do you want to walk with me?”

Skye shakes her head. “I wouldn’t be able to let you go,” she admits.

They hug a final time. “Goodbye, Skye,” May says.

“Bye, May.”

May leaves the room, hearing Skye start to cry as she closes the door. She takes a deep breath as she forces herself to start walking down the hall. _I need this,_ she tells herself. _It’s been years since I’ve had a vacation._ _The kids will be okay without me._

Coulson is talking with Andrew as she enters the garage. Mack will take them to the airport. He takes May’s bag for her and goes to put it in the trunk. Coulson and Andrew both smile at her as she approaches.

“All set?” Andrew asks. May nods and glances at Coulson. “I’ll go see if Mack is ready.” Andrew walks away, allowing the two friends to say goodbye.

“Are you sure you want to go?” Coulson asks.

“I need this,” May answers.

“You’ve earned it,” Coulson replies.

“Take care of the kids.”

“We’ll be fine.”

May considers hugging him, but decides against it. Andrew comes back over. “Time to go,” he says.

“Have a nice time,” Coulson tells them as they make their way to the car.

“We will,” Andrew promises with a grin.

May chooses to sit in the backseat on the way to the airport so that she can do some breathing exercises to keep herself calm without Andrew noticing. He’ll probably know anyway. Therapists are as good as spies at noticing everything. She feels content as they drive. It will be good to get away from SHIELD. She’ll miss her babies, but the break will be good for her. She’ll be able to recharge without any alien threats.

“Have a nice vacation,” Mack tells them with a grin as he helps Andrew get their suitcases out of the trunk.

“Thanks, Mack,” Andrew says, shaking his hand.

May takes Andrew’s hand as they enter the terminal. He glances at her in surprise, but doesn’t comment on it. May thinks about the fun she and Andrew will have. She’s excited for the adventure ahead.


	9. Part Nine: Uncle Mack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil decides they should let Mack in on the secret of their little family.

PHIL

 

Phil sits at his desk in his office catching up on the endless paperwork that’s required to run an organization such as SHIELD. He looks down at Skye, his little girl, who is sitting on the floor next to him sucking her thumb and playing a game on her phone. She’s squirming a bit and he knows he’ll have to change her soon. After changing her, maybe he’ll finally have that talk he’s been meaning to have with her.

It’s been nearly two weeks since May left and Skye is slowly returning to her big self. Phil wishes that he could give his surrogate daughter the chance to be little all the time, but now that SHIELD is having to deal with the Inhumans and the after effects of Jiaying’s actions, he really needs Agent Skye to step up and help him. Part of being Agent Skye means working closely with other agents, particularly Agent Mackenzie, whom Phil has put in charge of any and all alien artifacts and 084s. And since he’s planning on having Agent Skye and Agent Mackenzie partner up, he thinks it’s time to let Mack in on their secret family.

“Skye,” he says softly, stroking her hair. She looks up at him and smiles around her thumb. “Let’s go get you changed, sweetheart.”

They go to Phil’s bedroom where Phil quickly gets her clean and into a fresh diaper. “Skye, can we talk?” he asks once he’s returned from throwing the diaper away and washing his hands. Skye immediately gives him a worried, anxious look and he smiles reassuringly at her. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad. I just want to get your opinion on something.”

“Okay,” she says hesitantly.

Phil sits on the bed next to her and she leans into his side. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and presses a brief kiss to her head before beginning to speak. “I’ve been thinking that we should let Mack know about your little side.”

“What?” Skye pulls away and turns so that she can look at him. “Why?”

“Well, you’re going to be working closely with him, tracking down Inhumans, among other tasks, and since your little side is such a big part of you, I think you would have a better partnership if he know about it. Plus, you do have trouble making it to the bathroom on time, enough trouble that you still wear a pull-up even when you’re big.”

“So you want to tell him that his partner might wet her pants while out chasing a bad guy?”

“I won’t tell him anything if you don’t give me permission,” Phil tells her. “I just think Mack would be understanding about it, and it would be good for him to know just in case something happens in the field that causes you to go into your little headspace.” He places a hand on her shoulder and smiles kindly at her. “I don’t want an answer right away,” he tells her. “Take some time to think about it.”

She nods and swipes at her phone. “I’m gonna go find FitzSimmons,” she says as she stands up. Phil follows her out of the bedroom, heading back to his office as she makes her way to the labs.

 

SKYE

 

Fitz and Hunter are in the lab when she enters. Fitz is working on a drone while Hunter hovers nearby getting in his way. “Don’t touch that!” Fitz snaps, smacking Hunter’s hand as Skye approaches. Hunter pouts, but stops reaching for the piece of tech. He looks around and brightens when he notices Skye.

“Skye!” he calls out. “All right?”

Skye has been around her British teammates long enough to know that ‘all right’ is British for hello. “Hey,” she says. “Where’s Simmons?”

“With Mack,” Fitz answers, not looking up from his work. “They’re studying the monolith.”

“What are you working on?” she asks.

“I want to add a cloaking feature to the DWARFs,” Fitz explains.

“Awesome!” Skye reaches out to poke at the drone, only stopping when she gets the full brunt of Fitz’s death glare.

“I will kick you both out of this lab,” he threatens, and Skye and Hunter grin at each other behind his back.

“So, Coulson thinks I should tell Mack about my little side,” she brings up after she checks that there aren’t any lab assistants within hearing distance, which is a pretty safe bet since the lab assistants usually give Fitz a wide berth when Simmons isn’t around to moderate him.

“Yeah?” Hunter says, looking over at her.

“Yeah,” Skye repeats. “He thinks that since Mack and I are going to be partnering up on the Inhumans it would be good for him to know about that.”

“I’m surprised Coulson hasn’t already told him,” Leo snarks bitterly.

Skye frowns at him. “He said he won’t tell him without my permission.”

Leo scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Like that matters. If Coulson thinks someone should know about our little sides, then he goes ahead and tells them. He did it with Hunter and with Dr. Garner.”

“Dr. Garner needed to know,” Skye defends Coulson. “And Hunter’s little too, so Coulson telling helped him realize that.”

“He still should have asked us first.”

“Well this time he has asked me first.”

“Yeah, o’ course he asks his favorite first—”

Skye punches Leo in the arm. “Shut up!” she orders.

“Oi!” Hunter snaps, moving so that he’s in between them. “No fighting,” he tells them firmly, “or I’ll go get Coulson and you can tell him how you feel to his face.” Fitz goes back to his drone and Skye crosses her arms and looks away.

“I wasn’t happy that Coulson told Dr. Garner,” Skye admits after a few minutes of silence, “but it ended up being good that he did. It’s just embarrassing thinking about admitting everything to Mack.”

“Mack’s a good guy,” Hunter tells her. “I’ve known him for awhile now and I don’t think he’ll be too phased by it. Aliens freak him out, sure, but this thing we do—it won’t.”

“You think?” Skye asks.

“Yeah,” Hunter tells her with a grin.

Skye nods and pulls out her phone, opening up her text messages. She taps the one directed to AC, quickly types _Fine u can tell Mack_ , and presses send.

 

LEO

 

Leo lurks in the corridor outside of Coulson’s office wringing his hands. Hunter had told him that he should go talk to Coulson about his mini outburst in the lab. Leo knows that Hunter is right for once, but he’d really rather go back to the lab and keep working on the DWARFs. He’s just about to turn around and flee when Coulson opens his office door and motions him in.

“Hi, Leo,” Coulson says with a kind smile once he’s entered.

“Hi,” Leo mumbles, staring around the office at anything other than Coulson. Coulson goes to sit behind his desk, so Leo chooses one of the chairs in front of the desk and reaches out to fiddle with the little car on the desk. They wait in silence until Leo finally blurts out why he came.

“Skye said you’re gonna tell Mack about her.”

“I’m going to tell Mack about Skye’s little side,” Coulson clarifies.

“Are you gonna tell him about the rest of us?”

“Not unless you say I can.”

“That hasn’t stopped you before,” Leo mutters angrily, a frown on his face.

Coulson gives him a brief stern look at his tone. “I’ve already apologized for telling Hunter without talking to you.”

“You told Dr. Garner too.”

“I told Dr. Garner a lot of things about you, like your brain injury and the effects of that. It was all important information for him to know.”

“You still should have asked me first.”

“Do you want Mack knowing about you?” Coulson asks.

Leo shrugs. “Hunter says he won’t care.”

“I think Hunter is right. If I thought Mack might have a bad reaction, I wouldn’t even consider telling him.”

“I thought Mack was my friend,” Leo admits quietly, staring at his hands. “Then he brought the stupid other SHIELD here, to our home.”

“He thought he was doing the right thing,” Coulson observes. “I’ve spoken with him about that; he’s loyal to SHIELD, our SHIELD.” Leo doesn’t respond, just sits there looking worried. “Are you worried he’ll use your little side against you?” Coulson guesses. Leo looks at him and Coulson knows he’s guessed correctly. “Mack wouldn’t do that, Leo. I trust him to keep this secret. The only reason I think he needs to know about Skye is because they will be working closely together. There is no need for him to know about the rest of you.”

“If he finds out about Skye, he’ll probably find out about the rest of us. We all play together. And she might let it slip if she’s little around him. Or you might tell him.”

“Leo,” Coulson’s voice is stern now, “I’ve told you that I will not tell Mack without permission. You can believe me or not, but don’t keep accusing me of something I haven’t done yet.”

Coulson does something on his computer and an announcement echoes throughout the base. “AGENTS SKYE, SIMMONS, AND HUNTER REPORT TO THE DIRECTOR’S OFFICE IMMEDIATELY.”

“I think we need to talk about this as a family,” Coulson tells Leo.

Once Skye, Jemma, and Lance arrive, they sit around the table in the office and Coulson explains what is going on. “Skye and I have discussed letting Mack know about her little side, and she has agreed. Leo is worried that Mack will find out about the whole family if I tell him about Skye. I thought it would be a good idea to bring everyone together to discuss letting Mack in on our relationship.”

“Mack’s a good guy,” Lance says immediately. “I’m fine with him knowing about us. He won’t freak out.”

“If he learns about Skye, he’ll end up learning about us eventually,” Jemma speaks up. “It would probably be easier to go ahead and tell him instead of him finding out some other way.”

“Well, I’ve already agreed to tell him about me,” Skye says. “If we tell him about you guys, then we can be little together around him and we won't have to hide it.”

“He’ll be okay with it?” Leo asks Lance. “It won't be weird?"

“I can’t say it won’t be weird,” Lance says, reaching out and resting his hand on Leo’s shoulder, “but I do know Mack is a really laid back guy over things like this. Aliens, no, but relationships, yeah.”

Leo sighs. He has missed spending time with Mack, and this little thing has become a big part of his life now. “Okay,” he says. “We should tell him about all of us.”

“I’ll speak to him about it,” Coulson says. “Thanks, everyone.”

Lance wraps his arm around Leo’s shoulders as they leave the office. “It’ll be fine, mate. Mack won’t treat you any different.”

 

MACK

 

Mack makes his way through the halls of the Playground toward Coulson’s bedroom to meet his friends’ little sides, something he’d never imagined he would be doing. Earlier that day, Coulson had called him to his office and told him about his other relationship with Skye, Simmons, Fitz, and Hunter. It’s obvious that Coulson is closer with Skye and Fitz and Simmons than everyone else, but Mack had always assumed it was because they’d been a team before the fall of SHIELD. The specifics of their relationship, and the involvement of Hunter, had been a surprise.

He knocks on the director’s door and Coulson opens it, smiling as he invites Mack in. He enters and finds that he’s the focus of four sets of eyes. Leo and Lance are sitting on the floor with Leo’s tablet in between them; Mack can see a game on it that brings up a vague recognition of something his nephews are obsessed with. Skye and Jemma are on the bed with pads of paper and crayons. He smiles at the group, “hey, guys.”

Lance immediately smiles back. “Hi, Mack, do you know how to play Minecraft? Leo’s showing me.” Minecraft, that was the name of the game his nephews loved.

“Why don’t we play something everyone can play?” Phil suggests. “No Mouse Trap; it only goes up to 4 players,” he adds as Leo opens his mouth.

“We could play in teams,” Leo suggests, but it’s ignored.

“Can we play Apples to Apples?” Skye asks as she and Jemma start putting the crayons back in the box.

“That’s a good idea, sweetheart,” Phil tells her. “Why don’t you and Mack go get it from the games closet?”

Skye is unusually quiet as they walk through the halls. He makes sure to smile at her every time he catches her glancing nervously at him. “So what’s your favorite game to play?” he asks her to break the silence.

“I like all of them,” Skye answers, “well, I’m pretty tired of Mouse Trap because that’s all Leo wants to play, but I like to play games for the familyness of it. The nuns never played games with us at the orphanage and when the kids played together, the games usually ended in a fight over someone cheating. But here, we play as a family, and Dad—Coulson doesn’t let anyone fight.”

“Family’s important,” Mack agrees. “I’m glad you found yours.”

“It just keeps getting bigger,” Skye says, looking up at him and smiling.


	10. Part Ten: Leo's Meltdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team learns that the monolith has taken Jemma. Leo has a meltdown and his family takes care of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've bumped up the rating due to the characters' swearing. Also, in this chapter, Fitz and Hunter have a brief, non-graphic discussion about practicing safe sex by using condoms.

LEO

 

Fitz leaves the monolith room feeling the happiest he’s felt in a very long time. He actually managed to ask Simmons out, and she said yes! Now he has to figure out what to actually do on the date. Where should they go? What are they supposed to talk about? How will this affect their friendship? He hurries through the corridors, making his way to Hunter’s bedroom. He pounds on the door until Hunter opens it.

“What’s up, mate?” Hunter asks.

Fitz pushes his way into the room and starts pacing. “I asked Simmons out,” he tells his friend.

A big grin breaks out on Hunter’s face. “You did? Good on you, mate! Where are you taking her?”

“I don’t know!” Fitz cries. “I don’t know how to do any of this! I thought actually asking her out would be the difficult part, but now I have to actually plan the thing, and I don’t know where to go, or what she’s expecting, or . . . or . . . or—” He shuts up before he turns into a stuttering mess.

“Have you ever been on a date before?” Hunter asks.

Fitz feels his face turn red. “No,” he admits quietly.

“Okay, well, first thing is to figure out where to take her,” Hunter says, and Fitz is grateful that he’s not making a big deal over Fitz’s inexperience. “You’ll probably want something nice and romantic, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Fitz agrees.

“Well, you can never go wrong with a French restaurant for romantic.” Hunter pulls out his phone and searches for Yelp reviews of nearby French restaurants. “Number one in this area is a place called Lierre.” He hands his phone to Fitz who reads a few reviews and checks out the website.

“Looks nice,” he says. “I told Jemma we should go somewhere nice.”

“It looks like you found it,” Hunter tells him with a grin.

Fitz calls the restaurant and makes a reservation for half past seven. That should give Jemma enough time to finish up her work and get ready. “Now what?” he asks after hanging up and giving Hunter his phone back.

“Now,” Hunter says, wrapping an arm around Fitz’s shoulders and guiding him out of the bedroom, “we figure out how to make you look irresistible. You know how condoms work, right?”

“Hunter!” Fitz squawks, his face burning as they go into his bedroom. “We’re not gonna need those on the first date.”

“And that’s perfectly fine, mate. I just want to make sure you know how to protect yourself whenever you do decide to have it off. As adorable as a baby FitzSimmons would be, I don’t think a secret base is the best place to raise a kid.”

“Shut up.” Fitz rolls his eyes and shoves Hunter as he pulls out of the man’s grasp and goes to open his closet door.

 

MACK

 

Mack makes his way to the monolith room, fully intent on ordering Simmons to stop work for the day if she hasn’t already. The woman would spend the rest of the night studying the alien artifact if he allowed it, and Mack has already decided that the scientists will only be allowed to study the monolith during certain hours. He doesn’t trust the alien rock as far as he can throw it, and the less time the scientists are allowed around the thing, the less time there is for accidents.

The room is empty when he enters, and he’s instantly aware that the door to the monolith’s cage is open. “Simmons?” he calls out, even though he has a sinking feeling that he already knows what happened. He hurries to close and lock the door to the cage, and then picks up the nearby tablet, quickly pulling up the security feed to the room. Fitz and Simmons are talking, Fitz leaves, Simmons turns her back, the cage door opens, and the monolith liquefies, taking Simmons away. _Shit_ he thinks as he rushes out of the room.

He grabs the first agent he sees, ordering them to shut down the monolith room completely, before running to Coulson’s office. “Sir, we have a situation,” he says as he enters without knocking. He puts the security feed to the monolith room up on Coulson’s wall and rewinds it to show Simmons getting taken. “I’ve got agents working on locking the room down,” he says once the recording has finished. “I’m not going to let anyone else in that room.”

Phil sighs and scrubs at his face with his hand. “Good. Go oversee that and find out how the cage got open. I’ll gather the team and break the news.”

 

PHIL

 

Phil plays back the security footage again once Mack leaves the room. Fitz slips on the cage while he’s talking to Simmons, but he’s nowhere near the door, so he couldn’t have opened it. He rewinds the footage and pauses it just after Fitz leaves the room before sending out an announcement throughout the base calling Fitz, Hunter, and Skye to his office.

How is he supposed to break this news to them? Especially Fitz—he and Jemma have just started rekindling their friendship—this is going to devastate him. And Skye—she’s just lost her newly found birth parents, and May, and now Jemma has disappeared—how will this affect her? And just where has Jemma gone? SHIELD knows nothing about this monolith—what happens when it takes someone—she could be dead, she could be in another dimension—Coulson has no way of knowing, and no answers to give his team.

Fitz, Hunter, and Skye enter his office with questioning looks on their faces. Phil takes a deep breath and looks at them with a serious expression. Fitz’s expression changes to worry. “Approximately an hour ago,” Phil begins, “Simmons was in the monolith room doing research when somehow the cage door got open, and—well—” Phil plays the security feed to show them what happened.

Skye starts to cry as soon as she processes what she’s seeing. Hunter pales and turns to Fitz, but Fitz is halfway to the door.

 

LEO

 

“FITZ! FITZ, STOP!” He can hear Coulson shouting after him, but Fitz ignores him and keeps running. He’s running faster than he’s ever run in his life; he has to get to the monolith room to find Jemma. She can’t be gone. She just can’t be. They’re going to dinner.

Tears blur his vision, so he doesn’t see Mack until he’s run right into him. The large man is blocking the door to the monolith room, in the middle of putting up yellow caution tape, and he stands in Fitz’s way as the young man attempts to push past him and enter the room.

“MOVE!” Fitz screams as he shoves uselessly at Mack’s torso.

“You can’t go in there, Fitz,” Mack says, in his usual even tone.

“FUCK YOU!”

Mack wraps his arms around Fitz in a bear hug and says, “I’m so sorry, Turbo.” That’s all it takes for Fitz to break down and start crying.

“But, we’re going to dinner,” he says between sobs. “We’re going to dinner.”

Mack hugs him until he’s stopped crying, and when he pulls out of the man’s embrace, he finds Coulson, Hunter, and Skye standing there watching them. He notices Skye still has tears running down her face as he wipes away his own with the sleeve of his cardigan.

“Leo,” Coulson says, his voice gentle. “I’m so, so sorry this has happened.”

Leo very nearly starts to cry again. “Fix it,” he begs. “Bring her back.”

“I promise we’re going to figure out what happened to Jemma,” Coulson tells him, reaching out to put his hand on his shoulder. “Okay, Leo?”

Leo sniffs and nods. “Okay.”

“Let’s go somewhere more private,” Coulson suggests.

“I’m just gonna finish locking down the room,” Mack says.

Coulson nods. “Thank you, Mack.”

They make their way to Coulson’s bedroom. Lance falls into step beside Leo while Skye walks next to Coulson. Leo drops down onto the bed once they get there and Skye and Lance move to sit on either side of him. “I’ll go make dinner,” Coulson tells them. “Do you want me to put on a movie?” They all shrug, so Coulson puts on WALL-E and leaves the room.

Leo doesn’t pay attention to the movie. All he can think about is Jemma and how this is not how the evening was supposed to go. _The reservation!_ He remembers. He looks at the clock and sees that it’s just a few minutes after six. He should really call and let them know that they won’t be coming, but then he’d have to admit that this is real.

“Hunter,” he whispers, poking his arm. He glances over, eyebrows raised. “The reservation, to the restaurant. Will you call and change it for me?”

“Yeah, o’ course, mate,” Hunter replies.

“Don’t cancel it,” Fitz tells him. “Just—just move it out like a week.”

“Copy that.” Hunter gets off the bed and steps out into the hall. He comes back in a few minutes later and gives Fitz a thumbs up.

Fitz leans against Hunter after he settles back on the bed and closes his eyes. Maybe if he goes to sleep, he’ll wake up and find out that this is all some horrible nightmare.

 

PHIL

 

Mack finds him in the kitchen once he’s finished locking down the monolith room. He wordlessly starts helping Phil with dinner, and Phil is grateful for it. It’s been difficult learning to do things with one hand. He definitely has a new appreciation for everything Fitz went through after his brain injury.

“Thanks for comforting Fitz,” Phil says as they put together the lasagna, “and not letting him into that room.”

“I’m not letting anybody in that room until we figure out what that rock does,” Mack replies. “We don’t need to lose anyone else.” He puts the lasagna in the oven and pulls two beers out of the fridge, opening them both and handing one to Phil. They sit down at the kitchen table while they wait for the lasagna to cook.

“I’m worried that this will set Fitz back,” Phil tells Mack. “He’s really made a lot of progress overcoming his aphasia and everything else.”

“If anything, this may help him progress further,” Mack observes. “He has a goal now: figure out the monolith and find Simmons. And if anyone can achieve that goal, it’s Fitz.”

Phil nods and takes a sip of his beer. “Very true.”

~*~*~*~

When the lasagna is finished, Mack takes it out of the oven and sets the table while Phil goes to get the kids. Leo’s asleep, and Lance and Skye are both playing games on their phones. The movie credits are rolling across the television screen.

“Dinner’s ready,” Phil tells them. “Lance, can you wake up Leo and take him to the kitchen? I need to change Skye.”

He and Skye go into the bathroom and he helps her out of her wet pull-up and into a diaper. “What are we having for dinner, Daddy?” Skye asks.

“Lasagna,” Phil answers. He washes his hands and they go back into the bedroom to find Lance and Leo still there. Leo’s awake now, but he’s curled up on the bed, his back facing them. “What’s wrong?”

“He doesn’t want to go to dinner,” Lance answers.

“You two go ahead to the kitchen,” Phil tells Lance and Skye. “We’ll be there shortly.” They head out and Phil sits down on the bed next to Leo. “We’re having lasagna for dinner, Leo.”

“’M not hungry,” the boy mumbles.

“You don’t have to eat, but I need you to come to the kitchen with us. I don’t think you should be alone right now.”

“I don’t want to go to dinner. Not without Jemma.”

“I know,” Phil begins, but he’s interrupted by Leo as the young man sits up, glares, and starts shouting.

“NO! YOU DON’T KNOW! I’M NOT HUNGRY AND I DON’T WANT TO GO TO DINNER! SO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!”

“I’m not going to leave you alone, Leo,” Phil tells him firmly. He’s very much aware that the second the boy is left alone he’ll head straight to the monolith room. Leo lets out an angry yell and punches the bed. Phil glances at the door wishing that Melinda would walk in and take over for him. She’s a lot better at dealing with Leo’s temper than Phil is.

“I think we have ice cream,” he tries, and receives an eye roll in return. Phil sighs. “Look, Leo, I can’t leave you alone right now. The minute I leave you alone, you’ll go straight back to the monolith chamber—don’t try to deny it,” he adds when Leo opens his mouth to protest, “and right now, no one is allowed to go in that room. We can’t risk someone else getting swallowed by that rock. I’ve already lost May, and now Simmons. I can’t lose you too.” He waits while Leo thinks over what he said.

“What kind of ice cream?” the boy asks eventually.

“We can find out after dinner,” Phil promises.

They make their way to the kitchen where Lance, Skye, and Mack are having a friendly debate about the pros and cons of living like the humans on the spaceship in WALL-E. Unsurprisingly, Lance is all for it, while Skye and Mack are against it.

“Back me up, Leo!” Lance says as Leo sits down in the empty chair next to him. “Wouldn’t it be brilliant to zoom around in a hover chair all day?” Leo just shrugs and takes a drink of milk.

“You could build a WALL-E, couldn’t you, Leo?” Skye asks. Phil notes with amusement that she’s managed to get sauce all over her face. “And EVE?”

“O’ course I could,” Leo says. “I can build anything.”

“Daddy,” Skye turns to him, “we need funding so Leo can build a robot army.”

“And hover chairs,” Lance adds. “You can make hover chairs, right, Leo?”

“I could, but robots are more useful.”

“How’s a robot more useful than a hover chair?”

“Robots can actually do stuff,” Mack speaks up. “The only thing a hover chair can do is cart your lazy ass around.”

“So then I can do stuff,” Lance says with a grin, “without wasting valuable energy by walking.”

Phil keeps a close eye on Leo throughout the meal. There are times when he appears to get sad and teary, but Lance is keeping a close eye on Leo too and jumps in to distract him with a ridiculous question or comment. They have ice cream for dessert (Phil finds Leo’s favorite flavor in the back of the freezer) and when they’re finished with that, Mack volunteers to do the dishes so Phil can take the kids back to his room.

He lets them watch another movie, and then at bedtime, they somehow all manage to squeeze into the bed. Leo is practically on top of Phil, which is Leo’s preferred way of sleeping when they do share a bed, so he doesn’t mind the cramped space. Lance is cuddled up to Leo’s right side while Skye snuggles against Phil’s left side. It’s almost unbearably hot from all the body heat pressed against him, but Phil isn’t complaining; he just adjusts the room’s temperature from his phone. He’d happily deal with even more body heat if it meant May and Jemma could be there too.

 _Stay strong, Jemma_ he thinks as he drifts off to sleep. _We’ll find you._


	11. Part Eleven: What's in a Name?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye and Coulson visit Cal after he’s been through the TAHITI Protocol and afterward, Skye makes the decision to become Daisy.

“And you are . . .?” Her father—though he doesn’t know that’s who he is—asks, staring at her expectantly.

“Daisy,” she tells him, hoping that it will spark some sort of recognition.

“That’s a lovely name,” Dr. Winslow says with a smile. “Remember, a house is not a home without a pet!” Skye smiles back at him, and he goes inside his clinic.

She goes to join Coulson, who’s waiting next to Lola. “Thanks,” she tells him, “for doing that for him.”

“It’s one good use for the TAHITI program,” Coulson replies. She gets in the driver’s seat of Lola, and it still feels wrong even with Coulson being the person to hand her the keys. “Do you want to get some lunch before we go back?” he asks.

“Sure,” Skye says. “I want to stop by the store and pick up some things for Bobbi too.”

“All right.”

They decide on a chain sandwich shop, mainly because there’s a drugstore across the street, and settle into a booth in the back corner away from the other customers. Coulson slides in next to her and she leans against his side, pulling her legs up to rest her feet on the seat.

“How are you doing, sweetheart?” Coulson asks her, pressing a kiss to her head.

“I’m okay,” she says. “It’s just weird.” She eats a chip as she figures out what she wants to say. “I don’t think of him as my dad, but now he has no idea that that was ever a possibility; and I don’t want him to be my dad, but—” she’s not sure how to finish.

“It’s definitely complicated,” Coulson comments.

Skye nods and eats her sandwich. “Daddy?” she asks when she’s finished.

“Yes, Skye?” She just shrugs and rests her head against his shoulder. “Do you want to take a nap when we get back?” A nap sounds nice, but she wants to spend some time with Bobbi too. The agent had recently returned from the hospital where she’d had surgery on her lung and is spending most the day in bed as she recovers.

“Let’s go,” she says.

They throw away their trash and make their way across the street to the drugstore. Skye takes a basket and begins picking out a large stack of magazines, a couple of puzzle books, snacks and a few bottles of brightly colored nail polish. She’s passing the kid aisle where she spots a selection of stuffed animals. There’s a very yellow, cheerful-looking plush duck right on top and she adds it to the basket. She’s pretty sure Bobbi isn’t little like her, but even grown-ups can enjoy cuddling stuffed animals.

Coulson meets her at the front of the store, and she notices that he’s bought more diapers and pull-ups for her. They put the bags in Lola’s trunk and Skye drives them back to the Playground. Koenig is waiting for them as they enter the base and he pulls Coulson away to go over some urgent SHIELD business. Coulson gives Skye an apologetic look over his shoulder as he follows Koenig up to his office.

Skye drops the bag of diapers off in Coulson’s bedroom before making her way to Bobbi’s room. She knocks on the door and hears Hunter’s voice telling her to “come in!” She opens the door to find Bobbi lying on the bed with her eyes closed and Hunter stretched out next to her, hands behind his head.

“Hey,” she says quietly. “Is this a bad time?”

“I’m awake,” Bobbi murmurs, opening her eyes and smiling at Skye. “How are you?”

“I should be asking you that,” Skye says. “I got you some things while I was out.” She hands over the bag from the drugstore and stands there awkwardly while Bobbi goes through it. She pulls out the duck first as it’s the biggest thing in the bag and looks at it curiously. “I thought it was cute,” Skye tells her. “It’s nice having something to cuddle when you’re not feeling well.”

“It is cute,” Bobbi agrees. “Thank you, Skye.” She pulls out the snacks, magazines, puzzle books, and nail polish. Holding up a cheery yellow nail polish, she comments: “This will match the duck!” She smiles brightly at Skye. “Thank you so much, Skye. This is really sweet of you.”

“No problem,” Skye says. “How are you feeling though?”

“Tired, mostly,” Bobbi answers. “It’ll be a few weeks before I get my energy back, and then I’ll have to go get surgery on my knee. So basically I’m going to be stuck in bed for the next few months, which sucks.”

“Yeah, that does suck,” Skye agrees.

“You can sit down if you want,” Bobbi tells her, motioning to the foot of the bed.

Skye shakes her head. “Nah, I’m gonna go.”

“Well, thanks for stopping by. Come back anytime so my only company isn’t this idiot.” She jerks her head toward Hunter and grins.

Skye goes back to Coulson’s room and lies down on the bed with Ada Lovelace and her blankets. She tries falling asleep, but her thoughts won’t let her. She keeps thinking about how she’s spent her whole life searching for her identity—a name that means her. As a child the nuns had christened her Mary Sue Poots—a name that provoked merciless teasing from the other kids. Some of her foster families let her try out new names while she lived with them. She’d been Jessica, Amanda, Hannah, Taylor, and Chloe. None of the names stuck though, and she always went back to St. Agnes as Mary Sue whenever the latest foster family tired of her.

When she aged out of the system she chose her own name: Skye. To her it symbolized freedom. She’d watched this TV show as a teenager and one of the lines from the theme song had struck a chord with her: _You can’t take the sky from me_. After always having every good thing taken from her, she’d wanted something that couldn’t be taken away. So she became Skye.

She’d never stopped searching for who she should have been, though, and now she knew. She should have been Daisy Johnson. She should have grown up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But she didn’t. She’d grown up with inconsistency, never staying with the same family for very long. She knows now that it had been to protect her, but as a kid in the middle of it, it had just felt like no one wanted her, like no one loved her.

Now though, she has a lot of people who love her. She has a real family: a Daddy, a Mommy, brothers, sisters, and friends. She chose this family, just like she chose her name. So why can’t she get the thought of Daisy Johnson out of her head? Daisy Johnson is who she should have been, the little girl from Milwaukee. It’s not who Skye is now. But maybe it could be? She falls asleep with all of those thoughts running through her head.

~*~*~*~

“Skye, Skye, sweetheart, wake up,” Daddy is shaking her and she shifts, becoming alert as soon as she feels the wetness. Her pull-up must have leaked while she slept.

“I’m sorry,” she says automatically, opening her eyes to look up at Daddy.

“It’s not your fault, baby,” Daddy tells her. “Let’s get you clean and dry, hmm?”

He runs a bath for her, helping her wash as best he can with only one hand. She helps him change the sheets afterward and then they sit on the bed and he brushes her hair. “Your hair is getting so long, Skye,” he comments.

“Daisy,” she corrects him without even thinking about it.

“What?”

She sighs and is glad that he’s behind her. It makes having this conversation easier. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I want to become Daisy Johnson. It’s who I was supposed to be, only I didn’t get the chance, and now that I know that’s who I was supposed to be, well, I want to try it out. I want to have the chance to be who I was supposed to be.”

“Skye is who you are,” Coulson tells her, and she realizes that he isn’t going to understand.

“Skye is who I chose to be. And now I’m choosing to be Daisy.”

“Okay. Daisy.” He keeps brushing the tangles out of her hair. “This is going to be hard for me. I’m so used to thinking of you as Skye.”

“You’ll get used to it,” she tells him, feeling disappointed that he doesn’t get why she wants to make this change. She goes back to her room and begins creating the documents that will give her a new identity, just as she’s done many times before. She’s hoping this time will be the last.

Later that night she goes back to Bobbi’s room bringing her laptop with her. She’s eating dinner that Hunter brought her. “I’m gonna go find Fitz,” Hunter says as Daisy enters.

“Stay out of trouble,” Bobbi tells him.

“Always, love!” Hunter replies as he walks out the door.

“What’s up, Skye?” Bobbi asks, smiling brightly at her.

“Well, I’ve decided to start going by Daisy,” Daisy tells her. She sits down on the bed and opens her laptop to reveal an image search of different hairstyles. “And I want to get a new haircut to reflect the new me.”

“Awesome!” Bobbi says. “What length do you want it?”

“Shorter, definitely,” Daisy says. “I want people to recognize the change immediately.”

“You’ll look really cute with short hair,” Bobbi tells her, giving her head an appraising look. “Maybe in between your chin and shoulders?” They spend a couple hours looking through pictures online and discussing how the style would look on Daisy.

The next day, she takes a selection of pictures to a salon and has several inches chopped off. Coulson looks surprised when he sees her new look, but smiles. “I like the haircut, Skye,” he says.

“Daisy,” she corrects him. “I’m Daisy now.”


	12. Part Twelve: Take a Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow  
> Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.  
> I trust you’ll understand the reference to  
> Another Scottish tragedy without my having to name the play.”  
> –Hamilton, Take a Break
> 
> Or, Fitz has been working way too hard to figure out the mysteries of the monolith, so Hunter decides his friend needs to take a break and go have some fun. Mack and Daisy go along for the ride.

MACK

 

Mack stands in the hallway outside the monolith room, keeping a sharp eye on Fitz, who is sitting cross-legged right in front of the door. He has his case of DWARFs next to him and his tablet on his lap. The door to the monolith room is partially open to allow the DWARFs to enter and he’s there to make sure Fitz doesn’t try anything stupid. Hunter approaches and goes to stand next to Mack.

“How long has he been at it?” Hunter asks.

“A couple hours,” Mack answers. “I’m about to make him call it a day. Fitz!” Mack raises his voice slightly so that the scientist will hear him. “Ten more minutes!” Fitz doesn’t look up from his tablet.

“He’s spent every waking moment researching that bloody rock,” Hunter grumbles. “He doesn’t want to hang out or anything.”

“He won’t play video games with me,” Mack comments.

“We should drag him out for some fun.”

“What kind of fun do you have in mind?” Mack side eyes him.

“Not whatever kind you’re thinking,” Hunter retorts. “We should all take a day off—you, me, Leo, and Daisy—and do fun stuff like go to an arcade, or play mini golf, or just something to get our minds off the shit that’s been going on around here.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” says Mack. “I’ll talk to Coulson about it.”

“Brill!”

 

LEO

 

He’s woken by a large body landing on his bed and Lance’s cheerful, too-loud voice telling him to “wake up, Leo!”

“Go ’way,” Leo whines, burying his head under the pillow.

“Nope!” Lance starts bouncing on the bed.

Leo lets out a groan and hits him with his pillow. Lance laughs, grabs Leo’s other pillow, and soon they’re pillow fighting, which then turns into them wrestling on the bed. Leo knows Lance is holding back as they wrestle, mainly because Leo isn’t pinned to the mattress and is actually managing to hold his own.

“Guys!” Skye’s voice interrupts their fun. “You’re supposed to be getting ready!”

“I was just waking him up,” Lance says as they break apart. He turns to Leo and adds, “You’ve got some good instincts for someone with minimal combat training. I’ll have to take you to the gym sometime and teach you some real moves.”

“What are we getting ready for?” Leo asks Skye—no, she’s Daisy now—as he sits up and takes in her non-SHIELD Agent appearance. She’s wearing jeans and an Adventure Time t-shirt and there’s a headband in her newly short hair. He looks at Lance—who’s busy searching through Leo’s dresser for clothes—and notices that he’s also dressed in what could be considered ‘little’ clothes: shorts and a Harry Potter t-shirt with the Marauder’s Map password on it.

“Coulson gave us the day off,” Lance explains. “Mack’s gonna take us to an amusement park!”

“I can’t take the day off,” Leo objects. “I have stuff I need to do.”

Lance tosses him a pair of shorts and a blue “Trust Me I’m The Doctor” t-shirt Jemma had given him for Christmas one year at the Academy. “Get dressed. We have the day off and we’re gonna go have some fun.”

Leo scowls, but takes the clothes and makes his way to the bathroom down the hall. Half an hour later, he and Lance are in the backseat of one of the SHIELD SUVs with Daisy and Mack in the front. Their first stop is a diner for breakfast since the amusement park doesn’t open until ten.

“Don’t even have a full English,” Lance scoffs, looking over the menu.

“’Cause we’re in America,” Daisy says. Leo can almost hear the unspoken ‘ _duh_ ’ at the end of the sentence.

“That doesn’t mean you can’t offer the traditional breakfast of the people who originally settled this land.”

“So the Native Americans?” Daisy retorts.

“And the Spanish,” Mack adds, “and the French, and the Dutch too. Who else?” He asks Daisy.

“High school dropout,” she says with a shrug. “Do you know, Leo?”

Leo shakes his head. “I’m Scottish; I know as much as Lance. Well, about American history anyway. In other subjects I know a lot more than Lance.”

The waitress comes to take their orders. Leo and Daisy opt for sweet breakfasts with Leo ordering chocolate chip pancakes and Daisy ordering waffles, while Mack and Lance go for more savory breakfasts of eggs, bacon, and toast. While they wait for their food to come, Lance tears off the end piece of his straw wrapper and blows the rest at Daisy. Daisy immediately picks up her straw and does it right back at Lance.

Leo stares out the window. He can’t stop thinking about the next angle of approach he should take with the monolith and Jemma’s disappearance. The DWARFs haven’t found much data from the rock, but Mack also isn’t letting him open the cage to get better readings. A sugar packet hits him in the middle of his forehead and he’s jerked from his thoughts to find Lance giving him a cheeky grin from across the table.

“Stop thinkin’ about work,” he says, “and tell me, who would win in a fight: Doctor Who or Harry Potter?”

“Harry Potter,” Daisy answers before Leo can even start to think about the question. “He’s got magic,” she explains further. “All he has to do is Stupefy Doctor Who and then he can steal the TARDIS and go back in time to kill You-Know-Who before You-Know-Who tries to kill him.”

“First,” Leo interjects, holding up one finger as Lance opens his mouth, “he’s The Doctor, not Doctor Who. Second,” he puts up another finger, “the TARDIS is sentient and would refuse to take Harry anywhere. Third,” he puts up his thumb, “Harry can’t go back in time and kill You-Know-Who because that would create a paradox and bring Reapers.”

“Harry time-traveled and saved Buckbeak from being killed,” Daisy argues. “That didn’t bring Reavers.”

“It’s Reapers,” Leo corrects, “and that’s because J.K. Rowling didn’t create them.”

“She did the Dementors,” Lance adds. “Harry almost got his soul sucked out.”

The waitress comes by with their food and Leo drowns his pancakes in syrup. “Do you think Harry could beat a Dalek?” he asks Lance as he starts to eat.

“Yeah,” Lance says. “He could use a spell to stop the Dalek from exterminating him and then another spell to blow the Dalek up.”

“Harry wouldn’t blow up a Dalek,” Daisy says. “He doesn’t use anything stronger than Expelliarmus on the Death Eaters and that wouldn’t do anything against a Dalek.”

“What’s a Dalek?” Mack asks.

“Oh, now you’ve done it,” Daisy tells him as Leo starts explaining the history of Doctor Who to the uninitiated American.

 

DAISY

 

Leo spends the rest of breakfast telling Mack all about Daleks, The Doctor, the TARDIS, companions, and the show’s history. Daisy eventually just tunes him out. She’s glad he’s got his mind off of Jemma and the monolith, but there’s only so much Doctor Who talk that she can take. He finally shuts up when Mack goes to pay the bill at the counter.

She glances at the bathroom door across the restaurant and she knows that she should try to go before they leave, but it’s really far away and Daddy isn’t here to take her. Besides, she doesn’t have to go that bad yet.

Mack returns and tosses some bills on the table for a tip. “Okay, everyone needs to try going to the bathroom before we leave,” he says.

“What?” Lance asks incredulously.

“Coulson said to make sure everyone takes regularly scheduled bathroom breaks,” Mack tells him, “so that’s what we’re going to do.” Daisy’s pretty sure Coulson only specified her when telling Mack that, but she’s happy not to be singled out as the little baby who needs reminders so she doesn’t wet her pants.

“I don’t need to go,” Leo grumbles quietly as they get up and walk to the bathrooms.

Mack ignores his complaints and hands Daisy the backpack that’s acting as their diaper bag. She slips it on and enters the women’s room. She doesn’t need a new pull-up from the diaper bag, but when she’s finished peeing she does pull Ada Lovelace out for a quick cuddle. She wishes she could carry the elephant around the amusement park, but she’s afraid she’d look stupid, or she’d accidentally leave her somewhere, so she sticks the toy back in the backpack and zips it up. She doesn’t close it all the way though. She doesn’t want Ada Lovelace to suffocate after all.

Mack is waiting for her when she exits the restroom. They walk back to the car where they find that Lance has connected his phone to the car’s speakers and is blasting a playlist of British punk rock. Mack makes him turn the volume down, but not off, so they get to spend the drive to the amusement park listening to Lance sing along loudly and off-key.

Daisy feels butterflies in her stomach as they enter the amusement park. Funville (a silly name in her opinion) is not as large as some of the more famous amusement parks like Six Flags or Disney, but there is a lot to do and there are more people than she had expected to be there.

Mack shows the ticket person his phone, which has the tickets Coulson had purchased for them the night before on it. The guy scans the barcode and gives them all green wristbands to wear, which signify that they’ve paid for unlimited access to every ride and attraction in the park. The amusement park has an arcade, laser tag, mini golf, go-karts, and a whole lot more.

She looks at Leo and sees that he’s as overwhelmed as she is. He’s staring around with big eyes and has his fingers in his mouth. She takes off the backpack, unzips it a little bit more, and pulls out the bracelet Mommy had given him before she left. Daisy had swiped it from his dresser while he was in the shower. She offers it to him and he takes it, his face turning a bit pink. He takes his fingers out of his mouth and wipes them on his shorts before putting the bracelet on and bringing it to his mouth.

“So, what do you want to do first?” Mack asks. No one answers him, not even Lance who usually has an opinion about everything. “Okay, we’ll start with the mini golf,” he decides.

They make their way to the start of the mini golf course, pick out their clubs and balls, and go to the first hole. “You should be a natural at this, mate,” Daisy hears Lance tell Leo as she puts down her ball and eyes the hole.

“What, ’cause I’m Scottish?” Leo asks.

“Yeah.”

Leo sighs and even though she’s not looking at him, Daisy knows he’s rolling his eyes too. “Just because golf was invented in Scotland doesn’t mean all Scottish people know how to play, idiot.”

Despite Leo’s claim, he is winning when they reach the final hole. This one has a windmill blocking the hole and it takes Daisy five tries to get her ball through it, securing her second or third place spot depending on how well Mack does. Leo, of course, manages to get his ball through on the first try. Lance is third and Daisy, feeling mischievous, manipulates the windmill’s vibrations to block his attempts to get the ball through. He tries eight times before becoming suspicious.

“Are you using your powers to block me?” he asks, turning to her.

“Nope,” she tells him, giving him an innocent smile.

He tries five more times before throwing his putter to the ground in frustration. “You are!” he cries, pointing at her. “Maaaack, Daisy’s using her earthquake powers against me!” The family waiting behind them gives them very strange looks.

Mack sighs. “Daisy, stop messing with Lance.”

She leaves the windmill alone and it takes him another three tries to get the ball through. He scowls at Daisy as he stomps by her to knock his ball into the hole, which takes him another three hits. Mack ends up hitting his ball through the windmill on the first try and getting a hole in one, earning him second place. Lance is still sulking as they return their clubs.

“Lance, you can choose what we do next,” Mack tells him and he cheers up.

“Laser tag!” he decides immediately. He turns to Daisy and adds, “You’re going down.”

“No,” Mack says firmly, “because we’re going to be on the same team.”

Their team (naturally, with the three SHIELD-trained agents and one ex-SAS soldier turned mercenary) wins. Leo sticks close to the others and ends up getting in a few good shots against their opponents. Daisy saves Lance from being killed by an enemy sneaking up on him, which puts her back in his good graces.

They go on the go-karts next, and after that they make their way to the section of carnival rides with a carousel, a Ferris wheel, a Tilt-a-Whirl, and other rides that Daisy doesn’t know the name of. “Can we ride the carousel?” she asks as they walk by it.

“Sure,” Mack says. “You guys go for it; I’m just going to watch.”

“You don’t want to come?” Leo asks.

“I’m going to take some pictures for Coulson,” Mack replies, pulling out his phone.

Daisy, Leo, and Lance join the line, and they’re the only adult-bodied people without kids, but that’s okay. There is a pretty white horse decorated with flowers that Daisy has her eye on when it’s their turn. Unfortunately, a grandmother and toddler get there first, so she has to settle for a not as pretty gray horse. Leo and Lance climb on the horses either side of her. The music starts playing and the horse begins moving up and down. Daisy grabs on to the pole, a grin forming on her face as they begin to circle around. The ride is a lot of fun! She makes sure to smile big when they pass by Mack so Daddy will know how much fun she’s having.

They ride the Ferris wheel, the Tilt-a-Whirl, a Viking boat that swings back and forth really high, and a ride that takes you up high and then drops you. Leo doesn’t want to go on that one, so he and Mack go on the Ferris wheel again. By the time they’re finished, everyone is starting to feel hungry, so they head to the food stands to get lunch.

 

LEO

 

Leo is still a bit peckish after finishing the two hot dogs and plate of nachos he’d ordered for lunch from the food stands. He takes a sip of his soda, wishing Irn-Bru was more popular in the States, and looks around, eyeing the ice cream stand not too far from where they’re sitting.

“So, which country has weirder fried foods, America or Scotland?” Lance asks as he stares at a woman eating fried Oreos at the table next to him.

“Oi, don’t you start, Sassenach,” Leo warns.

“I’m just sayin’,” Lance says, holding up his hands, “deep fried Oreos, or deep fried Mars Bars?”

Leo glares at his friend and shoves him, nearly pushing him off his chair. Lance shoves back, but Leo holds onto the table so he doesn’t get knocked to the ground. “Hey!” Mack’s stern tone stops them from continuing their fight and they both turn to look at him. “If you two can’t behave, we’ll just go home,” he warns.

The boys mutter apologies to each other and Leo nicks a fry off of Lance’s plate. “I’m still hungry,” he says. “Can we get ice cream?”

“Sure,” Mack says. “Let’s all take a bathroom break, and then we’ll get ice cream.”

Leo scowls. “I don’t need to go,” he whines, even though that’s not entirely true. He just hates being told when to go. He doesn’t need help with that; he’s not a baby. “You guys can go and I’ll meet you by the ice cream.”

“No, you’re coming with us,” Mack tells him, standing up and gathering the trash. Leo opens his mouth to argue some more, but Mack fixes him with a stern gaze and says, “If you keep whining, I’m not getting you ice cream.” Leo closes his mouth and pouts, but follows the group to the bathroom.

When they’re finished, they sit down on a bench in the shade to wait for Daisy. Leo appreciates the short break from all the stimulation and chews on his bracelet, letting the sound of Lance’s chatter about everything going on around them act as comforting background noise. His mind goes straight to Jemma and guilt blooms in the pit of his stomach. He should be back at the base working on ways to bring her back, not having fun without her at an amusement park.

“Are you having fun, Turbo?” Mack asks, wrapping an arm around Leo’s shoulders. Leo nods, feeling like he’s going to cry. “What’s wrong?”

“Jemma,” he mumbles around the bracelet.

“What?”

He takes the bracelet out of his mouth and repeats, “Jemma.”

“You miss Jemma?” Mack asks.

“Feels wrong,” Leo explains, “having fun without her. I should be working to bring her back, not spending the day playing.”

Mack wraps his other arm around Leo and hugs him tight. “Taking breaks is important, though, Turbo. You’re no good to Jemma if you burn out trying to figure out what happened to her.”

“I’m not gonna burn out,” Leo protests. “I’m not gonna give up until I figure out what happened.”

“I know you’re not,” Mack reassures him, “but constantly working on the problem without taking time away from it just makes the solution harder to figure out. Whenever I’m dealing with a difficult problem, it usually helps for me to step away and think about something else for a while. Then, when I go back to it, it’s like I’m looking at the problem through fresh eyes. So don’t feel bad about having fun today. Maybe you’ll come up with a new angle when you go back to work tomorrow.” _Tonight_ , Leo mentally corrects him, because he’s definitely going to be pulling an all-nighter once they return to the Playground to make up for the time lost at Funville.

Daisy comes out of the bathroom and hands the backpack back to Mack. “Ice cream now?” Leo asks as they stand up.

“Yeah, Turbo, let’s go get ice cream.”

They wander around the park as they eat their ice cream, watching people lose at carnival games. Leo feels a small rumble as they watch a little girl try to knock down a stack of bottles. The bottles fall and he glances at Daisy, who watches with a proud smile as the little girl picks out a large fluffy unicorn toy as her prize.

When they’re finished with their ice cream, Mack hands them wipes from the backpack to wash the stickiness off of their hands and faces and they make their way to the arcade. On the way, they pass by a face-painting booth, and Daisy slows down to watch as a little boy is turned into a tiger.

“Do you want your face painted?” Mack asks her and she nods.

Leo studies the designs on display while Daisy has a butterfly painted onto her face. He can get a monkey on his cheek, so he sits down once Daisy gets up, feeling foolish, but happy, because monkeys. They all look at Lance once Leo’s finished and he mutters “what the hell,” sitting down to have a skull and crossbones painted on his cheek. Mack takes their picture once they’re finished and then Daisy tags both Leo and Lance on the shoulder, shouting “Last one to the arcade is Hydra scum!” as she runs off.

 

MACK

 

Mack pulls the SUV into the garage at the Playground and parks. It’s empty, which doesn’t surprise him because it’s close to nine in the evening. Daisy is asleep in the seat next to him and Leo and Lance are sitting silently in the backseat, a rare occurrence for the two chatterboxes. They unbuckle and get out of the car. Mack opens Daisy’s car door and unbuckles her. She’s sound asleep and he doesn’t feel like waking her, so he just picks her up and carries her into the base, following Lance and Leo inside.

Lance tells them goodnight and heads toward the sleeping quarters, but Leo—Mack rolls his eyes as Leo heads toward the lab. “Leo,” he calls out, and the young man stops, turning to face him with a stubborn expression. “Don’t even think about it. Go to bed. You can work tomorrow.” Leo scowls, but starts making his way to the bedrooms. Mack makes a mental note to check on the boy before he goes to bed to make sure he hasn’t snuck into the lab anyway.

He knocks on Coulson’s door and it’s opened almost immediately. “Did you have fun?” Coulson asks as he enters and places Daisy on the bed.

“Yeah,” Mack says, shrugging the backpack off of his shoulders and handing it to Coulson. “It was a lot of fun, but now I’m worn out.” They’d tired of the amusement park in the early afternoon, so they’d left and gone to the movies where they’d decided to see Inside Out. After the movie, they’d gone to get dinner and then gone to a park where Lance had brought out his soccer ball and challenged them to a game of two-on-two soccer. It had been a lot of fun, but Mack is really starting to feel it in his body. He’s not as young as he used to be.

“Thanks for the pictures,” Coulson tells him as he starts unpacking the backpack. “I think the one after getting their faces painted is my favorite.”

“Yeah,” Mack agrees with a smile. “They’re good kids. Leo and Lance had a shoving match after Lance made fun of Scotland, but they stopped after I threatened to bring them home. And Leo was sad about having fun without Jemma, and not spending every waking second studying the monolith. He’s gonna sneak into the lab once we’re all in bed, I’m sure of it.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Coulson says, pulling out his phone and swiping it on. He taps it a few times before putting it back in his pocket. “There, the lab doors are locked until 6 in the morning.”

Daisy stirs on the bed, opening her eyes. “Daddy?”

“Hi, sweetheart,” Coulson says, going over to her.

“Have a good night, guys,” Mack says, taking his leave.

He makes his way to the bathroom to shower and then goes to the common room to unwind with some video games before bed. He sees Leo sulking on the couch when he enters. “The lab doors are locked and won’t open,” he complains when he sees Mack.

“Coulson has them locked until 6 in the morning,” Mack tells him, sitting down next to him. He turns the TV on and hands a controller to his friend. “What game do you want to play?”


	13. Part Thirteen: Big Sister Bobbi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bobbi learns about Coulson's little family and quickly finds herself in the big sister role.

LEO

 

Fitz enters the lab and immediately stops at the sight before him. An agent (Samuels? Samberly? Saley? He hasn’t bothered learning any of their names) is in the middle of taking a post-it note from the pad on Simmons’ desk. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he snaps, glaring at the man, who freezes and turns to look at Fitz, post-it note still clutched in his hand.

“I needed a post-it note, sir,” the agent says nervously.

“So you just decide to steal one from someone else instead of getting your own from the supply cupboard?”

“Well, it was closer, and Dr. Simmons isn’t using them—” the agent realizes his mistake and stops talking, swallowing nervously as Fitz’s look gets darker.

“ _PUT_. _IT. BACK_!” Fitz shouts, glaring daggers at the agent who immediately obeys, placing the sticky note back on top of Jemma’s desk. “YOU _DON’T_ TALK ABOUT HER, AND YOU _DON’T_ TOUCH HER THINGS, YOU _FUCKING IMBECILE_! IF I SEE YOU _ANYWHERE_ NEAR SIMMONS’ DESK AGAIN—”

“Fitz?” He ignores Bobbi calling him and keeps shouting at the agent in front of him. “FITZ!” A hand grabs his shoulder and he shrugs it off, turning to glare at the taller woman who interrupted his tirade.

“ _What?_ ” he snarls at her.

“Why are you shouting?” Bobbi asks, leaning on her crutches and giving him a concerned look.

He gestures at the agent who is staring pleadingly at Bobbi. “This twatting arsehole was _stealing_.”

“I just needed a Post-It!” the agent defends himself.

Bobbi looks over at him. “There are Post-Its in the supply closet.” She tells him, shooing him away. “Fitz, come with me.” Bobbi turns and makes her way out of the lab. Fitz shoots one last glare in the direction of the agent now hiding in the supply cupboard and follows Bobbi to the gym.

She makes her way to the treadmill and holds her crutches out to Fitz. “Put these over there,” she orders. He takes them and places them against the wall, harder than he needs to in his anger. They fall, clattering to the floor, and he picks them up, leaning them against the wall a bit more gently. He turns around and sees Bobbi watching him with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t break my crutches, Fitz. I need those.”

“I could build you better ones,” he tells her. “I could build you a hover chair, so you wouldn’t need crutches, and it would have the added bonus of making Lance jealous. He’s been bugging me to build him a hover chair ever since we watched WALL-E.”

“You and Hunter watch Disney movies? And since when do you call him Lance?” Bobbi asks as she steps onto the treadmill and turns it onto the lowest setting.

Fitz just shrugs, taking a seat on the bench nearby. “Sometimes I call him Lance. And Disney movies are for everyone to enjoy.”

“My physical therapist said I should start walking on the treadmill for my knee,” Bobbi explains, “and that I should have someone be there while I do it, just in case something happens.” Fitz nods and watches her walk. She’s able to continue for 10 minutes before she’s too out of breath and in pain. She turns the treadmill off and just stands there, gripping the side bars while she catches her breath. Fitz gets a cup of water from the water cooler and brings it over to her.

“Thanks,” she says after she’s gulped it down. She crumples the paper cup in her hand and scowls at the machine. “I used to be able to run for miles without breaking a sweat, now I can’t even walk 10 minutes without needing to stop.”

“Yeah, it sucks,” Fitz agrees. “After my brain injury I couldn’t speak properly, I couldn’t move properly, I had to go through months of therapy to get anywhere near normal functioning. I was really angry about it, all the time. My therapists kept reminding me that I needed to be patient, but that just made me angrier, and I’d shout at them and throw things. It turns out that they were right. It’s been over a year since my injury, and words aren’t as hard anymore, and I can use both my hands properly. It just took time. Your recovery will take time too, so you’ll need to be patient.”

“Thanks, Fitz,” Bobbi says, smiling at him. “Will you help me get to the bench? I need to stretch.” He supports her as she hobbles over to the bench and sits down, stretching her leg out on the bench. “You know, you still need to be patient too,” she tells him as she stretches. “Maybe not with your recovery, but definitely with Jemma’s disappearance. That monolith has been around for hundreds of years and no one knows anything about it. As smart as you are, you can’t just expect to solve a hundreds year old mystery in a couple months. I know you miss Jemma, we all do, but you can’t take it out on the lab assistants.”

“But they’re _idiots_ ,” Fitz complains. “Did you hear what he said? ‘It’s closer and Dr. Simmons isn’t using it.’ Bloody lazy-arse just didn’t want to walk the 10 extra feet to the cupboard. He doesn’t care at all that Simmons is gone. No one cares but me.”

“That’s not true!” Bobbi reaches up and tugs on his arm to get him to sit next to her on the bench. “We all care that Jemma is gone.”

“Then why am I the only one who’s doing anything?” Fitz asks. “Everyone else is more concerned with the terrigen in the ocean and the Inhumans than trying to figure out what happened to Jemma. I’m the only one who’s doing any research on the monolith, and even then I can’t do any proper research because Mack won’t let me in the fucking room.”

“Mack doesn’t want anyone else getting sucked up by that rock,” Bobbi says, placing a hand on Fitz’s shoulder. “If you were taken too, then there’s no else smart enough to figure out how to get you back.”

“At least I’d be with Jemma.”

“You’re not going to do anything stupid are you, Fitz?”

“No,” he says with a sigh. “I’m not gonna go into the monolith room without permission if that’s what you mean.”

“Good,” Bobbi says, “because if you were going to do something stupid, I’d have to kick your ass.”

Fitz looks over at her with a small grin. “I might be able to take you now that you’ve got a busted knee. Hunter’s been showing me some moves.”

“Oh, you think so?” Bobbi laughs. “I can hand Hunter’s ass to him six ways to Sunday, so whatever he’s teaching you won’t help you get past me.”

“Only six?” Fitz says, smirking. “I’d have thought as a specialist you’d know more ways than six.”

Bobbi punches him lightly on the arm. “Shut up, you, and fetch my crutches.” He does so and she follows him back into the lab. “You know, Coulson was talking to me about joining you in here,” she tells him. “I have a degree in Biology, and I know I can’t replace Jemma, but maybe I can help out some.”

“I didn’t know you had a Biology degree,” Fitz comments.

“Yeah, I was looking at med school when SHIELD came calling.” She looks around the lab and catches the eye of the agent Fitz had yelled at earlier who very deliberately shifts the stack of Post-Its on the table next to him so she’ll see. “You know, I’m not telling you what to do,” she tells Fitz quietly, “but it would probably be a good idea to go apologize to him.” She nods at the agent. “He may be a lazy-arse, but it’s dickish to call him that to his face.”

“I didn’t call him a lazy-arse to his face,” Fitz corrects her. “I called him a fucking imbecile and a twatting arsehole.”

“Still dickish,” Bobbi says.

Fitz sighs. “Yeah, fine.” He goes over to the agent and says, “Sorry about before, I shouldn’t have shouted.”

“Thanks,” the agent says. “I shouldn’t have taken a post-it from Dr. Simmons’ desk.”

They shake hands and Fitz goes back to Bobbi who smiles approvingly at him. He scowls back. Hunter enters the lab looking worried. “Fitz, mate,” he says as he approaches. “Mack and I have a situation you could probably help with.”

“What is it?” Fitz asks.

“Er,” he glances at Bobbi and then whispers in Fitz’s ear, “Daisy had a nightmare and now she’s a _little_ freaked out.”

“Anything I can help with?” Bobbi asks, glancing between the two.

“Nope, we’re all good, love,” Hunter says, grinning at her. “C’mon, Fitz.”

Hunter leads him to the common room and Fitz immediately picks up on the familiar scent of urine. He glances at the couch and notices a wet spot. Mack is kneeling in front of the cupboard where they store their cleaning supplies talking softly. He looks up as the boys approach.

“What happened?” Fitz asks.

“I was in here playing X-Box and Daisy was napping on the couch, then all of a sudden she wakes up and runs into the closet,” Mack explains. “She won’t talk to me, but I can hear her crying, and well, you’ve noticed the couch.”

“Where’s Coulson?”

“On a field trip with Koenig checking out the Cocoon,” Mack answers. “He gave orders not to contact him unless it was a life or death thing.”

Fitz tries the door handle, but it’s locked. “Daisy? It’s me, Leo. Can you open the door?” Daisy just keeps crying. “You’re okay now, Daisy. You’re safe. You’re at the Playground, and nothing’s going to hurt you, okay?”

“We can’t help you if you don’t open the door,” Mack adds. They hear Daisy say something, but it’s muffled. “What was that?”

“Need Daddy,” they hear her say.

“Da’s not here right now, Daisy,” Fitz says. “But I’m here, and Lance, and Mack. We can help you.”

“No!”

Fitz turns to Hunter. “Go get her elephant and blankets,” he instructs. “Mack, we need to put something on the couch.”

“Copy that,” Mack says and leaves the room.

Fitz listens, and doesn’t hear her crying anymore. “Do you want to talk about your nightmare?” he asks. She doesn’t respond verbally, but he can picture her shaking her head. “I don’t like talking about my nightmares either.” Mack comes back in with a bucket and sponge and starts scrubbing at the spot on the couch. Hunter enters with Daisy’s comfort objects and hands them over to Fitz. “Lance has brought you Ada Lovelace and your blankets, Daisy. Will you open the door now?”

They wait, and very slowly the closet door opens a crack and Daisy holds her hand out. “No, you need to open it the whole way,” Fitz tells her. They hear her huff, but the door opens so that they can see her. Fitz hands over the elephant and blankets and she hugs them to her chest. He can clearly see the wet spot down her trousers. “Were you wearing protection?” he asks.

Daisy’s face turns red. “I had a pull-up, but it needed changed,” she admits in a whisper. “I was too little; I just wanted a nap.”

“Are you big enough to clean up without help?” Fitz asks.

Daisy starts to cry again and shakes her head. “Need Daddy,” she repeats.

“He’s not going to be home for a few more hours,” he tells her. “Can I help?” He doesn’t really want to, but he can’t leave Daisy in wet pants until Da gets home.

Daisy looks horrified at the thought. “No!” she cries, and he’s relieved.

“Well, er—” Fitz isn’t sure what to do. If she won’t let him help, she certainly won’t let Lance or Mack help. And Da’s gone, and May’s gone, and there’s no one else around who knows.

“What about Bobbi?” Mack suggests. They look at Daisy, who considers it and then nods. “I’ll go and get her. Fitz, can you take Daisy to Coulson’s room? Hunter, keep scrubbing.” He tosses the sponge to Hunter on his way out the door.

 

DAISY

 

Daisy hugs her elephant and blankets tightly to her chest, careful to not let them touch her pants. She’s cold and itchy and uncomfortable. She wants Daddy. She wants Mommy too, but Mommy left, just like all the other mommies she’s had. No Mommy wants to take care of a baby like Daisy. She’s too much work. She can’t stop wetting her pants and having nightmares and being so needy.

She slips her thumb into her mouth and sucks on it as she stands up and exits the closet. Lance is scrubbing the couch and her embarrassment grows as she realizes she’s left evidence of her little problem where anyone can see. It’s one thing to wet Daddy’s bed where they can change the sheets and no one will know but them. It’s completely different having an accident in a common area where anyone can go. She sucks at her thumb harder so she won’t start crying again. She’s tired of crying.

“Leo, I want Daddy,” she says around her thumb. Has anyone called him to let him know she needs him?

“Me too,” Leo responds.

“Call him,” she orders. He starts walking toward the door, so she hurries after him, following him to Daddy’s bedroom. “Leo, call Daddy and tell him I need him,” she says once they’re in the room with the door closed.

“Da’s busy,” Leo says. “He said no calls.”

That’s not the answer Daisy wants to hear. She’s wet and icky and uncomfortable and scared from her nightmare and she just wants Daddy to come and make it better. She scowls. “Call him!” she orders again, stamping her foot for emphasis.

“I’m gonna go start the bath,” Leo says. He’s not listening to her. She hits him on the back as he walks past.

“Oi!” he cries, turning around. “No hitting!”

“Call Daddy and tell him I need him.” Daisy repeats. He ignores her and starts to head into the bathroom, so she hits him again. He turns back around to face her and this time he shoves her, knocking her to the floor just as the door opens to let Mack and Bobbi in.

“Leo!” Mack calls out sternly.

“She hit me first!” Leo protests.

Mack sighs and looks up at the ceiling. “Come on, Turbo, let’s give Daisy and Bobbi some privacy.”

Daisy looks up at Bobbi shyly from her spot on the floor and starts sucking on her thumb. Being on the ground makes Bobbi look even taller and Daisy feel even smaller. Bobbi smiles down at her. “Hi, Daisy. Mack told me about everything. He said you need my help.” Daisy nods. “I’ll go start the bath. Can you get your clothes off by yourself?” Daisy nods again.

Bobbi goes into the bathroom and Daisy hears the water turn on. She gives one last squeeze to Ada Lovelace and her blankets before placing them on the bed. She pulls off her shirt and bra and jeans and puts them in the hamper. She takes off the soaked pull-up and carries it into the bathroom to throw away in the garbage can. Bobbi is sitting on the edge of the tub, her crutches lying on the floor next to it. Daisy is careful not to trip over them as she climbs into the tub.

“Fitz must be in a grumpy mood today,” Bobbi comments as she shuts the water off. “He didn’t hurt you when he pushed you, did he?”

“No, he's always in a grumpy mood.” Daisy answers. “I did hit him first,” she admits.

Bobbi puts soap on a washcloth and starts washing Daisy’s legs. “Why did you do that?”

“I told him to call Daddy and he wouldn’t.”

“Coulson went with Koenig to look at the Cocoon. He thinks it will be a good training facility for the new Inhumans. He said no one was to contact him unless it was life or death, remember?”

Daisy does have a vague memory of Daddy saying that before he left, but she’d been pretty tired and hadn’t paid much attention to his orders other than to hear that she didn’t have any duties she needed to perform and was free to take a nap while he was gone. “But I need him,” she says, shifting in the water so that it made waves.

“Don’t you dare splash me,” Bobbi warns, and Daisy hadn’t even been thinking about that, but now she is. She grins innocently up at Bobbi. “Once we’re finished, I’ll contact Coulson and get an ETA on when he’s expected to be home,” Bobbi promises.

Daisy grabs the washcloth from Bobbi’s hand and quickly scrubs between her legs. “Okay, I’m clean,” she says, reaching forward to open the drain. She climbs out of the tub and stands there while Bobbi dries her off with a towel. “Hurry!” she whines, as Bobbi makes sure she’s completely dry.

“Okay, I’m done,” Bobbi says. “What do you need next?”

“Call Daddy,” Daisy answers.

Bobbi rolls her eyes. “You need to get dressed,” she reminds her.

Daisy huffs and pouts. “I have sweatpants and t-shirts in the bottom drawer of the dresser,” she tells her.

“I’ll get them for you,” Bobbi says, leaning over to pick up her crutches. She stands up and makes her way out of the bathroom.

Daisy gets a pull-up out of the package under the sink and pulls it on. She should probably wear a diaper, but she’d need to have Bobbi help her put it on, and that would just take more time. All she wants to do is find out when Daddy will be home. She goes into the bedroom to find Bobbi sitting on the floor next to the dresser. The bottom drawer is open and she has a pair of sweatpants and t-shirt in her lap. Daisy takes them from her and quickly dresses. “Now call Daddy.”

“Can you help me up?” Bobbi asks. She looks annoyed, and at first Daisy thinks she’s annoyed at her for bugging her about calling Daddy, but then she realizes that Bobbi is upset that she needs help standing. Daisy kneels down so that Bobbi can wrap an arm around her shoulder. She grabs onto the dresser with her other hand and Daisy starts to stand slowly as Bobbi pulls herself up. Daisy picks up her crutches and hands them to her. “Thanks,” Bobbi says, and goes to sit down on the bed. Daisy notices she’s breathing hard. “You’ve got your shirt on backwards, by the way.”

Daisy fixes her shirt and sits down next to Bobbi. She hugs Ada Lovelace while she waits for the woman to catch her breath. She wishes Bobbi would go ahead and call Daddy, but she keeps her impatient thoughts to herself. Bobbi can’t help that she has more trouble breathing now. She’s missing part of her lung of course she has trouble.

“Okay, Daisy, I’m going to give Coulson a call,” Bobbi announces and Daisy brightens immediately. Bobbi pulls out her cell phone and taps one of the contacts. “Hello, Director, this is the Playground,” Bobbi says when Coulson answers. “We were just wondering what your ETA is—oh, yes, everything’s good here—yes, sir—we’ll see you then, thanks.” She hangs up and turns to Daisy. “He said they’ll be back around 7 tonight.”

Daisy looks at the clock, which reads 4:08 PM and promptly bursts into tears. “No!” she wails, falling back onto the bed and hiding her face in her blankets. “I need him now!”

“Oh, Daisy, it’s going to be okay,” Bobbi says, reaching out to rub Daisy’s arm soothingly. She’s mostly quiet while Daisy cries, occasionally murmuring that “it’s okay” and “I know.” Daisy stops crying and sits up, wiping her face and nose on her sleeve. Bobbi grabs a couple tissues from the box on the nightstand and hands them to her. “You okay now, flower?”

Daisy shrugs. “Flower?”

Bobbi moves closer so that she can hug Daisy. “Yeah, ‘cause you’re Daisy, so flower seems appropriate, don’t you think?”

Daisy smiles. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“So what do you want to do while we wait?”

“Can we watch a movie?”

“Of course, flower. What movie do you want?”

“Mulan?”

“Oh, I love that movie!” Bobbi turns the television on and they shift on the bed so they can cuddle up and watch.

 

LANCE

 

Lance looks up from cleaning the couch cushion as Mack and Fitz enter the room. No, Mack and Leo, he decides as he takes in the boy’s posture and slight pout. “Everything okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, Bobbi’s helping her,” Mack answers.

“What did you tell her?” Lance asks.

“I gave her a brief explanation of Daisy and Coulson’s relationship and Daisy’s little side and then told her what we needed to help with.”

“So you didn’t tell her about me and Leo?”

“No, though she probably guessed about Leo.”

Lance looks at Leo who scowls. “Daisy hit me, so I pushed her and they walked in right when that happened,” he explains.

“Well, if you feel like pushing, let’s go work out that aggression in the gym,” Lance suggests. “You want to come, Mack? I’ve been teaching Fitz some basic combat skills. It would be good practice for him to face multiple opponents.”

“Sure,” Mack says. “I could use a good workout.”

~*~*~*~

“I’m starving,” Fitz complains in the locker room after their training session.

“Me too,” Hunter says. He checks his watch. “It’s dinner time, what should we do?”

“Take away?” Fitz suggests. “I could go for a good curry.”

“Ooh, yeah, a curry would be great. Or Chinese.”

“I was thinking DJ’s,” Mack says.

“We should see what Bobbi and Daisy want,” Fitz says.

They finish dressing and go to Coulson’s room. Lance smiles at the sight that greets them when they open the door. Bobbi and Daisy are cuddled together on Coulson’s bed, both asleep. He pulls out his phone and snaps a picture. “Oi! Bob, Daisy, wake up! We’re hungry!”

Bobbi flips him the V-sign and opens her eyes. “If you expect me to make you dinner—”

“No, no,” Hunter interrupts her, holding up his hands placatingly. “We just wanted to know if you had any thoughts about take away. Fitz and I want Indian, but Mack wants burgers.”

“I’m with Mack,” Bobbi says. “I want a burger."

“Pizza,” Daisy says. Her eyes are still closed.

“I guess we’re making three stops then,” Mack says. “Daisy, what kind of pizza do you want?”

“Pepperoni.”

“Just pepperoni?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, who wants to ride along?” Leo and Lance raise their hands. Mack looks at Bobbi who looks down at Daisy who still hasn’t opened her eyes.

“I’ll stay with Daisy,” she says.

“Cool, we’ll be back soon with dinner.”

“Bagsy the front seat!” Lance calls out as soon as they’re in the garage.

“Then I get it on the drive back,” Leo says immediately.

“Fine,” Lance replies.

The drive around town to pick up their food is entirely uneventful. Leo whines about how hungry he is, and he and Lance bicker over what music they should listen to. Mack solves this by turning the radio to a jazz station. They get back to the base and gather in the kitchen to eat.

They’re in the middle of a game of Bananagrams after dinner when Coulson enters. “Daddy!” Daisy cries, jumping up and rushing into his arms.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Coulson responds, giving the group a questioning look over Daisy’s head.

“Daisy really missed you while you were gone, sir,” Bobbi tells him, “but we got through it.”

Coulson takes Daisy to his bedroom and the group decides not to finish the game. Fitz heads to the lab, Mack turns on the X-Box, and Hunter and Bobbi make their way to Bobbi’s room.

“So you’re part of Coulson’s little family too,” Bobbi comments as they cuddle on the bed. Hunter tenses and pulls away, rolling over so that his back is facing her. “I’m cool with it,” she’s quick to reassure him, placing a hand on his back. “I’m glad you’ve found a family who cares about you.”

“Did Mack tell you?” Hunter asks, still facing away from her. “He said he didn’t.”

“Mack didn’t tell me; I figured it out. I read people for a living, Hunter,” Bobbi says. “I’m very good at putting two and two together. You were the one who came to get Fitz when Daisy first had her accident. Then I saw Fitz acting little and figured out that he must be part of the family too. Fitz referred to you as Lance earlier; he said you had watched WALL-E together. And you didn’t seem surprised to see Daisy and me in Coulson’s bedroom. Plus you do have a tendency to act like a five-year-old with ADHD when you’re bored. It all adds up.”

“I do not act like a five-year-old,” Hunter protests, turning over to cuddle with Bobbi again.

“Oh, you definitely do,” Bobbi says, grinning at him. “At least now I know I can call Coulson to put you in timeout when you start to annoy me.”

Hunter groans and pulls a pillow over his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So 3x13 was really devastating. I'm going to miss the Fitz/Bobbi/Hunter dynamic a lot. Thank God for fanfiction.


	14. Part Fourteen: Agent Lance and Director Dad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After getting Nerf guns at the toy store, Lance goes on a mission to stop a villain from stealing SHIELD secrets.

BOBBI

 

Bobbi limps into the garage and sees Mack standing next to his espresso machine. “Hey!” she calls out cheerfully.

He turns around and smiles when he sees her. “Hey, no crutches!”

“No crutches,” she agrees, holding out her arms and smiling broadly back at him. “It feels great. Now I just have to keep working so I can get this knee brace off.”

“Anytime you want me to help you, just say the word,” Mack tells her. He takes his cup of espresso from the machine and motions to it. “You want a cup?”

“Sure.”

They sit down at the small table in the garage and drink their espresso. “Remember that mission to Rome with Izzy?” Mack asks.

Bobbi laughs. “Yes! Some supervillain wannabe created a bunch of robots and was threatening to destroy the city. We had him neutralized in an hour and our SO gave us the rest of the day off to do some sightseeing. That was a fun day.”

“Yeah,” Mack agrees. “You and Izzy had too much to drink and I had to stop you from going swimming in the Trevi Fountain.”

“Really? I don’t remember that.”

“Yeah, after that I bought you both espresso to sober you up.”

Hunter enters and joins them, resting his head on his arms on top of the table. “Sooo boooored!” he whines.

“So find something to do,” Mack tells him as Bobbi rolls her eyes.

“But there’s nothing to do! There’s nothing good on telly, Koenig’s playing Call of Duty on the X-Box, and I haven’t heard anything from Fitz even though his plane landed over an hour ago.”

“There’s always inventory,” Mack suggests.

Hunter scoffs. “No way am I doing work unless I’m ordered.”

“That can be arranged.”

Bobbi sees movement out of the corner of her eye and turns to see Fitz walking past the entrance of the garage. “Speak of the devil,” she murmurs. “FITZ!” Fitz turns at her shout and comes to join them in the garage, taking off his backpack as he sits down at the table. “Hi, Fitz. How was your trip?”

“It was great until the bloody airline lost my luggage,” he says with a scowl.

“Oh, that sucks,” Bobbi says sympathetically.

“Yeah,” Fitz agrees unenthusiastically. “At least I had everything important in my carryon.”

“How was the Yucatán though, mate?” Hunter asks.

“Yucatán was fantastic,” Fitz says, brightening. “I got to see Guatemalan black howlers when I went to look at the site where the monolith was buried!” He pulls out his phone and shows them the pictures and videos he took of the monkeys. “Aren’t they adorable? Look at that prehensile tail!”

“Aw, it looks so cuddly!” Hunter says delightedly.

“Yeah, they’re one of the largest New World monkeys—”

“Did you learn anything about the monolith?” Bobbi interrupts before Fitz can start info dumping. It is very difficult to stop him once he gets going, especially when he’s talking about monkeys.

“Uh, yeah,” Fitz says distractedly. “Yeah,” he repeats, putting his phone down on the table. “There were artifacts buried with the monolith. Most don’t mean anything, but there’s one that sounds very promising. I’ll need to do some research, figure out where it went after it was dug up. And I’ll need to go shopping for new clothes at some point.”

Bobbi perks up at that. A chance to get Fitz out of his cardigans and into something nicer? Hell yeah! Bobbi is all over that opportunity. “We can do that for you, Fitz,” she says. “I mean, if you need to start researching your lead from the Yucatán, we can go shopping for you. Just give us your measurements.”

“Er, well, they’ve probably changed since I started working out with Hunter,” Fitz says, tugging at his shirt collar.

Bobbi gets up and starts looking around the garage. “Mack where’s your measuring tape?” she asks just before she spots it on the workbench. “Oh, there it is.” She picks it up and goes to stand next to Fitz. “Levántate, hermano.” He stares at her. “Get up,” she translates. She makes a mental note to talk to Coulson about teaching some basic foreign language lessons while she waits for clearance to go back into the field.

He stands up and then huffs in annoyance as Bobbi begins taking his measurements. “Do you have to do this here?” he complains.

“Yes,” Bobbi answers matter-of-factly. He rolls his eyes, but doesn’t complain any further. Hunter types the measurements Bobbi calls out into his phone. “Okay, we’re done,” Bobbi announces, moving to put the measuring tape back where she’d found it.

“Brilliant,” Fitz mutters and picks up his phone from the table. “I’m gonna go shower and get started on my research.”

“Don’t worry, Fitz, we’ll get you a kickass wardrobe,” Bobbi tells him as he walks out of the garage, putting his backpack on as he goes. She turns to Hunter and Mack. “So, are we doing this now?”

“Yeah!” Hunter agrees immediately, obviously eager to have something to do. “I’ll drive!”

“Yeah, I’ll tag along if you don’t mind,” Mack says. “I need to find a birthday gift for my nephew.”

“Which one?” Bobbi asks as they make their way to the car.

“Lucas,” Mack answers. “He’s turning ten.”

“No! Lucas can’t be ten already! Do you have any pictures?” Mack pulls out his phone and shows her a recent photo of his nephews. “Oh, they’ve gotten so big! How old is Lorenzo now?”

“He just turned eight.”

~*~*~*~

They end up spending a couple hours at the local outlet mall picking out various suits, pants, and shirts for their friend. Bobbi makes sure to get a lot of blue to bring out Fitz’s eyes. Hunter insists on getting him some new sweaters “so there’s at least a couple things he likes.”

“You know, it’s probably a good thing Fitz didn’t come along,” Hunter comments as they walk back to the car. “He would have vetoed nearly everything. Except the jumpers, of course.”

“That’s exactly why I offered to go shopping for him,” Bobbi answers. “If it was left up to him, he’d have come home with more cardigans and shirts that don’t even fit right. This way, he gets to start on his research, and I get to pick out things that will look good on him. We all win.”

 

LANCE

 

Hunter drives them to a nearby Toys R Us so that Mack can pick out a birthday present for his nephew. They follow Mack to the Minecraft aisle, and Hunter looks at the Lego while Mack tries to decide what to get. There are some sets that Leo doesn’t have, and looking at them gives Hunter an idea.

“You’re gonna make Fitz try on everything you bought him, right?” he asks Bobbi.

“Of course,” Bobbi answers. “I have to make sure everything fits him.”

“He’ll get cranky,” Hunter observes.

“So? He’ll just have to deal with it. He’s a grown—” Bobbi stops when she remembers that she’s talking about Leopold Fitz, a grumpy Scot who has no problem letting others know when he isn’t happy. She sighs. “What are you thinking?”

Hunter points to one of the less expensive Minecraft Lego that he knows Leo doesn’t have. “Bribe him. Leo hasn’t got this one, and I know he’d like it.”

Bobbi considers it and then takes the box off the shelf. Mack decides to get his nephew one of the Lego Minecraft sets as well. They’re on their way to the front of the shop to pay when Lance spots the Nerf aisle and immediately heads down it. “Bob, look!” he calls out delightedly as he stands there and takes in all the toy weapons. “Wouldn’t these be perfect to use for tactical training?”

“We already have guns for tactical training,” Bobbi reminds him as she and Mack join him in the aisle.

Lance scoffs. “They’re useless plastic that don’t even shoot! These would be a lot more fun! With these, the team will know when they’ve been hit without you giving away your position by yelling bang. I think it would greatly improve everyone’s awareness of their surroundings. I mean, it would be even better if Coulson would install a laser tag course like I asked, but he said no.”

“You just want an excuse to shoot people,” Mack tells him with a raised eyebrow.

“With Nerf guns, no one gets hurt,” Lance responds. He starts taking boxes off the shelves. “Bobbi, can you go get a trolley, please?”

Bobbi rolls her eyes but does what he asks. “You’re really going to spend hundreds of dollars on toy weapons when we have real weapons back on base?”

“Yup,” Lance says cheerfully. “It’s not like I have to pay rent or buy food, and if I word it correctly, I can write it off as a SHIELD expense. Team-building experience or some key word like that.”

“I don’t think Koenig will go for that,” Mack tells him. “Coulson might, if you catch him in a good mood.”

They pay for their toys and Hunter drives them back to the base. Bobbi sits in the backseat so she can prop her leg up on the seat. “I may have overdone it a bit with all the walking,” Bobbi admits with a frown once Hunter’s parked the car.

Hunter gets out and goes to open her door. “Hop on,” he says, standing in front of her with his back to her. Bobbi climbs onto his back and he hooks his arms under her thighs while she wraps her arms loosely around his neck.

“I guess that means I’m carrying the bags,” Mack comments as he closes the door.

“Five bucks says you can’t get them all in one go,” Hunter challenges him.

“You’re on,” Mack replies. He opens the trunk and starts loading the bags onto his arms.

Hunter carries Bobbi to her bedroom and drops her gently onto the bed. “Thanks,” she tells him as she stretches out. He helps her prop her leg on some pillows and brings her an ice pack to put on her swollen knee. “I think I’ll take a nap before dinner.”

“Of course, love,” Hunter says, giving her a kiss. “I’ll wake you when dinner’s ready.”

He makes his way to his room where he finds that Mack has left the bags with the Nerf guns on his bed along with a note claiming that Hunter owes him $5. He pulls the boxes out of their bags and gets to work opening them up. He tries the Hammershot blaster first, loading the darts, pulling back the hammer, and pulling the trigger. The foam dart shoots out of the toy and hits the wall. Lance smiles and sets it aside. He opens the Demolisher 2-in-1 next and frowns when he reads on the box that it needs batteries.

Mack keeps a stash of batteries in the garage. He’ll just have to go on a mission to get some, he decides, nodding to himself. “What do you think, Toby?” he asks his dinosaur. “I hope there aren’t any villains who need batteries for themselves.”

_I’m afraid we’ve received intelligence that there are villains seeking the batteries, Agent Lance_ the dinosaur replies.

“What?” Lance asks. “Who?”

_Baron Greenback has ordered Stiletto Mafiosa to retrieve the batteries for him. He needs them to power a death ray._

Lance’s eyes widen. “Oh no! Where are Danger Mouse and Penfold?”

_Colonel K has sent them out on another mission, Agent Lance. He has informed me that only you can stop Baron Greenback’s evil plan._

Lance grins and immediately opens a second Hammershot blaster, loading it with darts. He sticks replacement darts in his pockets and uses a belt to strap the Demolisher to his back. When he’s ready, he takes a blaster in each hand and begins to carefully make his way toward the garage.

There’s no sign of the evil crow anywhere as Lance slowly makes his way through the base, and no sign of him in the garage when Lance reaches it. He grabs a handful of AA batteries and slips them into his pocket, feeling confused. Was Toby’s intelligence wrong? No, Lance realizes. Stiletto Mafiosa wasn’t sent on a mission to steal batteries for a death ray. He was sent on a mission to steal SHIELD intelligence so Baron Greenback can _build_ a death ray!

He hurries to Coulson’s office and crouches down to peer through the windows. Coulson is at his desk and there’s no sign of Stiletto Mafiosa, but that doesn’t mean the crow isn’t hiding, waiting to strike. The office door opens and Lance instantly turns, raising his blasters to defend himself.

Coulson is standing in the doorway looking down on Lance, a bemused expression on his face. “What are you doing?” the Director asks.

Lance motions for the man to join him on the floor. “Baron Greenback wants to build a death ray,” he explains in a whisper. “He’s sent his henchman Stiletto Mafiosa to steal SHIELD secrets.” At Coulson’s concerned look, Lance quickly clarifies: “It’s just pretend.”

“I see,” Coulson says. “What does this Stiletto Mafiosa look like?”

“He’s a crow and he wears a green trench coat and hat,” Lance describes. “He’s from the telly.”

“And you think he’s in my office?”

“I didn’t see him when I looked,” Lance says. “I think he might be hiding, waiting until the office is empty.” Lance gasps as he realizes that if Coulson is outside the office talking to him, then that means the office is empty right at that moment. He and Coulson rise up to peer through the windows. “There!” Lance taps the glass, pointing toward Coulson’s desk.

“What should we do?” Coulson asks.

“We need to stop him before he can take our intelligence. I think if we sneak in and split up around the desk, we should be able to stop him.” Lance hands him the blasters, unstraps the Demolisher from his back, and pulls some batteries out of his pocket. “This one needed batteries, but I think it’s gonna do more damage to stop the bad guy.” Coulson helps him put the batteries in and Lance tests it out, firing down the hallway. He grins as the darts shoot out of the blaster at rapid speeds. He tries the missile launcher and is pleased that it also shoots far. He hurries to retrieve the missile and darts, and then he and Coulson prepare to enter the office and catch the villain.

Lance enters Coulson’s office first, keeping low to the ground so he won’t be spotted. He moves around the desk and begins firing. He runs out of darts quickly, so he fires the missile launcher. It shoots out of the blaster and straight into Coulson’s shadow box frame of old SHIELD logos sitting on the windowsill. Lance watches in horror as it rocks backwards and then tumbles forward off the sill, falling to the floor where they hear the shattering of glass.

His stomach drops. “Sorry!” Lance says immediately, letting his toy fall out of his hands and to the floor with a loud bang. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

“It’s okay,” Coulson says as Lance goes over to the fallen box and picks it up. There’s a small pile of broken glass on the floor and inside the frame. He sets it gently back on the windowsill and then reaches toward the pile of glass, intent on picking up some of the bigger pieces. “No!” Coulson says sharply when he sees what Lance is doing. “Come here.” Lance eyes Coulson nervously and doesn’t move. He’s not sure what Coulson is going to do, and he’s not particularly eager to find out. “You’re not in trouble, Lance,” Coulson says gently. He smiles kindly at him. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself on the glass. Please come over here by me.”

This time Lance obeys. “I’m sorry,” he repeats once he’s next to Coulson. “I’m really sorry.”

“I know, Lance,” Coulson says. “It’s okay. I can get a new frame.” He squeezes Lance’s shoulder. “I guess we shouldn’t have been playing with Nerf guns in here, huh?”

“Guess not,” Lance answers dully. He looks around the office. “And Stiletto got away.”

“Oh, well, we’ll catch him next time.”

“No, Colonel K has prob’bly already told Danger Mouse to find him and stop Baron Greenback from using the SHIELD secrets he stole. Danger Mouse will stop him. He always does.”

Coulson blinks. “I don’t understand any of that,” he admits.

“It was a TV show, when I was a kid,” Lance explains, “about a secret agent mouse, and his assistant Penfold, and Baron Greenback was the main villain, but Danger Mouse always stopped his evil plans.”

“What about Colonel K?”

“He’s Danger Mouse’s boss.”

“You’ll have to show me an episode,” Coulson says. He squeezes Lance’s shoulder again. “I’ll call the janitorial staff to come take care of the glass. Why don’t you take your toys back to your room and then meet me in the kitchen. You can help me cook dinner.”

“Okay,” Lance says. He picks up his Demolisher, takes the Hammershot blasters back from Coulson, and makes his way back to his room. “I failed the mission, Toby,” he tells the dinosaur, feeling glum.

_Danger Mouse has already apprehended Stiletto Mafiosa and recovered the secrets stolen from SHIELD_ Toby informs him.

“I knew he would,” Lance says. At least the Baron won’t be able to build his death ray.

He makes his way to the kitchen where he finds Coulson standing in front of the open refrigerator. “What do you want for dinner, Lance?” he asks as Lance takes a seat at the center island.

“Well, I’d love a pie and mash, but we probably don’t have any jellied eels, do we?”

Coulson turns around to give him a grossed out look. “Jellied eels?”

“They’re all the rage in East London,” Lance informs him. “Can we do spag bol?”

“Spag bol?”

Lance rolls his eyes. With three British children, Coulson should really learn more about what they eat. “Spaghetti Bolognese,” he clarifies. “Spaghetti with meat sauce.”

“Oh,” Coulson says. “Yeah, we can do that.”

Lance takes charge of preparing the meal. His Gran had taught him how to make spag bol as a child and he is very fond of her recipe. It has mushrooms in it, and Lance really likes mushrooms.

“So, when did you get the Nerf guns?” Coulson asks as they cook.

“This afternoon,” Lance answers. “The airline lost Fitz’s luggage, so he needed new clothes. Bobbi offered to go shopping for him since he wanted to get started on researching his newest lead. Me and Mack tagged along, and after we got Fitz’s clothes, we stopped at the toy store so Mack could get his nephew a birthday gift. I saw the Nerf guns and couldn’t help meself. I thought they’d be fun to use for tactical training; more fun than shouting bang with a plastic gun anyway. Or maybe we can have a base-wide game of Assassin. That would be wicked! Or, if you decided to go ahead and install a laser tag course, we could teach tactical skills through that.”

“I’m not going to put in a laser tag course, Lance,” Coulson says firmly, “but I like your Nerf gun idea. We’ll just need to make sure no one shoots them around areas with a lot of breakables, like my office or the lab.”

“I really am sorry,” Lance tells him again.

“I know you are, and it’s okay,” Coulson says. “It was just an accident. I should have thought about it before I let you play in there, but I didn’t, so it’s actually my fault.”

“Your fault?”

“Yep. I’m the grown up; I should have realized playing with Nerf guns in my office would lead to something breaking.”

While they wait for the sauce to simmer, Lance goes to get a deck of cards from the games cupboard, and he and Coulson play a few games of Snap before switching to War. Lance teaches Coulson Beggar-my-neighbour and after they’ve played a couple rounds of that, the sauce and spaghetti are ready.

Lance puts the cards away and goes to get Bobbi. He opens her door to find her already awake and flipping through a magazine, one arm hugging the duck Daisy had bought her. “Hey, Bob,” he greets her as he enters. “Dad and I made spag bol. Are you hungry?”

Bobbi looks up and gives him a questioning look. “Dad?”

Lance pauses. Had he called Coulson Dad? Where did that come from? “Er, I mean Coulson.” He rubs the back of his neck and doesn’t meet her eyes.

“It’s okay if you want to call him Dad, Lance,” Bobbi tells him gently. “I think Coulson makes a pretty good one.”

Lance goes and sits on the bed. “I broke something in his office,” he admits. “Accidentally. He didn’t shout or anything. He said it was his fault, and that he should have realized playing with Nerf guns in his office would lead to things breaking. Me real dad wouldn’t have been that understanding.”

“That’s why you don’t talk to him anymore,” Bobbi comments.

“I joined the army as soon as I could to get away from him.”

“Then I guess it’s about time for you to experience what a good dad is like.”

Lance grins. “Yeah, I guess so.”


	15. Part Fifteen: Moving Forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Daisy colors pictures and is tired of Daddy getting her name wrong, Hunter wants to go after Ward, and Fitz figures out who has the scroll casing. Takes place just before 3x01. Thus ends Ohana.

DAISY

 

Daisy sits on her bed in her bedroom dressed comfily in sweatpants and the t-shirt Mommy had given her before she left. Mommy’s smell has long since faded from the t-shirt in the six months that have passed, but Daisy still likes wearing it. It gives her some connection to Mommy, which she still wants even though Mommy decided to abandon her just like all her other mommies.

Her phone with Mommy’s number is on her nightstand next to a sippy cup filled with apple juice. She’s only contacted Mommy twice since she left: once to tell her about Jemma’s disappearance, and once to tell her about her name change. Mommy understood the name change better than Daddy. She keeps hoping Mommy will call her and tell her she’s coming home, but so far she hasn’t. It’s fine. Daisy’s used to mommies leaving. At least this time she still has most of her family: Daddy, Leo, Lance, Bobbi, Mack, and Jemma wherever she is.

She takes a sip of juice and turns her attention back to the coloring pages in front of her. She’s already colored a Yoda picture for Bobbi, a Bing Bong from Inside Out picture for Mack, a monkey picture for Leo, and a dragon picture for Lance. She still has a mermaid picture to color for Jemma and a D is for Daisy picture for Daddy to help him remember. She decides to color the daisy picture next and selects a green glitter crayon from the box to color the letter D.

Daisy likes coloring. The rhythmic motion helps her relax after a long day and she gets to makes boring white pages colorful and interesting. She wishes the SHIELD reports and files could be more colorful, but Coulson had gotten frowny the one time she used a purple pen to write her notes and sent out an email to everyone with a reminder that only black ink was allowed on SHIELD reports. She’d had to redo the notes and it was really annoying. But when coloring, she can use whatever color she wants and Coulson can’t say a thing except “wow, I love it!”

She’s pleased with how the pictures turn out when she’s finished coloring them all. She puts Jemma’s picture in a folder where she keeps all the pictures she’s colored for her sister to give to her whenever Fitz figures out how to bring her back. Daisy knows that Fitz will bring Jemma back, or die trying, and she really hopes he doesn’t die trying. She doesn’t want to lose her brother too.

She takes the rest of the pictures and gives them to each of her family. Mack is playing video games in the common room. He gives her a hug and says he’s going to put the picture in his garage next to his espresso machine. Bobbi and Hunter are in Bobbi’s bedroom. They both exclaim happily over their pictures and give her a hug and kiss. She can’t find Fitz to give him his picture, so she slides it under his bedroom door and makes her way to Daddy’s bedroom to give him his picture.

He’s still dressed in his work clothes and he’s frowning at something on his tablet, his back to the door as she enters. “Hi, Daddy,” she greets him once she’s closed the door behind her.

“Hi, Skye,” he responds automatically, not looking up from the tablet.

“ _Daisy_ ,” she corrects him, her tone annoyed. “It’s Daisy now, Daddy.”

“Daisy, right, sorry,” he says absently, still not looking up from whatever report he’s reading.

“Look, I colored you a picture to help you remember.” She goes over and puts the coloring page on top of the tablet, blocking his view of the screen.

A look of irritation flashes over his face, but he takes a deep breath and sets the tablet down. “Wow, Daisy, this is very pretty,” he says, picking up the picture to take a closer look. “Did you use the glitter crayons?”

“Yes,” Daisy answers, “I did each letter a different color. You should put it somewhere where you’ll see it a lot so you won’t keep forgetting my name.”

He sticks the picture in the frame of the mirror over his dresser and turns back to Daisy. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a long day and I’m tired. Are you ready to go to bed?”

“Yes, I’m tired too,” Daisy replies. “Will you tell me stories?”

“Of course, which kind of story do you want?” He checks her diaper and goes to get a clean one from the package in the bathroom while Daisy lies down on the bed and thinks about her answer.

“Tell me stories about you and Mommy at the Academy,” she decides, “and some stories about Captain America.”

When he’s finished changing her, they cuddle together on the bed and Phil tells her stories until she falls asleep.

 

LANCE

 

Bobbi and Hunter lay cuddled together on Bobbi’s bed. Hunter presses a kiss to Bobbi’s bare shoulder as he tries to figure out how to tell her he wants to go after Ward. Bobbi still has a few more weeks needed to heal from her injuries and he’s tired of waiting. He’s been doing some digging and he has a lead on Ward’s location. He just needs the green light from Coulson.

“I want my wedding ring back,” Bobbi announces out of the blue.

Hunter pulls away so he can stare at her. “What?” he asks incredulously.

“I want my wedding ring back,” she repeats. “You do know where it is, don’t you?”

“O’ course I do,” Hunter answers. “I know exactly where it is.”

“Then get it for me.”

“Okay.” Bobbi kisses him and he lets himself kiss her back before gently pushing her away. “I’m going to go after Ward,” he tells her.

“Yeah,” Bobbi says, “we both are. When I’m better.”

“No,” Hunter says. “I’m going after him soon. I think I know where he is. I just need to get the green light from Coulson.”

“You’re not going to wait for me?”

Hunter sighs. “I want to,” he admits. “I really want us to go and take him out for good, together. But if my intel is correct, then I’m not going to be able to wait until you’re ready.”

“Fine.” She rolls over to face away from him. He’s made her angry, but that’s nothing new.

“I love you.”

“I know.”

~*~*~*~

The next morning Hunter goes straight to Coulson’s office. He knocks and enters when given permission, sitting down in the chair across from Coulson’s desk. “Sir, I want permission to track down Ward. I’ve been doing some digging and I think I have a good idea of where he is, but I’ll need to go undercover, call in a few favors with my old mercenary contacts.”

Mack enters before Coulson can answer. “Sir, there are some 911 calls coming in from Seattle. It looks like a potential Inhuman.”

“Get the team ready,” Coulson orders. “Hunter, suit up. We’ll talk about you going after Ward later.”

“Copy that,” Hunter replies, hurrying out of the office after Mack.

 

LEO

 

Yusef Hadad. The scroll casing found with the monolith had been in Mosul’s Central Museum in Iraq until Hadad had taken it earlier in the year. He’s going to need to track down Hadad.

He makes the fake splinter bombs first. That’s the easiest part of his plan. The next step is seeking out Bobbi. He finds her in the lab, working with some lab assistants on the program tracking the spread of terrigen in the ecosystem. “Bobbi, can I speak with you privately?” he asks.

“What’s up?” she asks once they’ve moved to a private corner of the lab.

“Do you speak Arabic?”

“I’m not fluent, but I know the basics,” she replies. “Why?”

“I’ve tracked down the scroll casing and I’m going to need to know a few Arabic phrases to get it.” He hands her a sheet of paper with the English sentences he wants to say on it. “Can you just write down the phonetic translations for me? Preferably right now.” He turns to walk away without waiting for an answer.

“Fitz?” Bobbi calls out and he stops, but doesn’t turn around. “You’re not going to do anything stupid are you?” Fitz glances back and then continues on to the door of the lab.

Getting permission from Coulson to access the SHIELD archives turns out to be a lot easier than Fitz expected. The man is completely distracted with the Inhuman problem and doesn’t ask any questions about why Fitz wants access to the archives. With that taken care of, Fitz quickly packs a bag and then seeks out Bobbi who hands him the translation, a concerned look on her face. “Don’t die out there,” she tells him.

The archives tell him where Yusef Hadad and the scroll casing can be found. Morocco.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's read, left comments, and/or left kudos! (100 kudos, that's awesome!) 
> 
> The glitter crayons are a nod to itsfaberrytaboo's Color the Sky series, which is a very well-written non-sexual age play series between Mama Maria and Little Natasha.
> 
> I have some ideas for continuing this series, but I am going to go back to my rule of writing the entire story before publishing, so it may be a couple months before I post anything new.
> 
> Thanks again to everyone who's read this!


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